Wednesday 23 June 2010

Wimbledon Diary 2010: Day 2

After the drama of day 1, day 2 was business as usual in comparison. The three top seeds from the men's draw in action, Nadal, Murray and Soderling, all won pretty comfortably in straight sets. Indeed in Soderling's match he cared more about a butterfly fluttering around his baseline than he did for poor Robby Ginepri being pulverised at the other end of the court.

On the woman's side Sam Stosur followed her conquerer at the French Open final, Francesca Schiavone out of the tournament but Serena Williams and Caroline Wozniacki looked untroubled as the proceeded onwards. One to watch out for this year could be Maria Sharapova. It has been hard going for her in recent years with a procession of fairly serious injuries but could she finally be out of the woods? She won comfortably 6-1, 6-0 and will be hoping to make an impact on this years championships.

Focusing on the Brits and although Andy Murray provided Britain with it's obligitary 1st round win it was another bad day for women's tennis. Deja vu struck on court 12 when Anne Keothavong, as her compatriot Elena Baltacha did on the same court 24 hours earlier, grabbed defeat from the jaws of victory. Having won the first set but slipped behind in the second, Keothavong seemingly had control of the 4th with a 4-0 lead before losing 6 consecutive games to lose the final set 6-4. Scot Jamie Baker followed her out of the tournament in straight sets. But as with day 1 there was a silver lining and it came with another teenage Junior Grand Slam Champion. Heather Watson, the 18 year old US Open Junior Champion was up against the talented Italian, Romina Sarina Oprandi. Despite being ranked 139, Oprandi is clearly more talented than that ranking suggests but perhaps without the application to move up to the top 50. Heather Watson put in a good solid performance but just lacked the experience to win the important points and lost in three sets 6-4, 1-6, 6-3. It was a good solid debut in Grand Slam tennis and she definitely has the talent to move up the rankings. It will certainly be interesting for Britain to have potentially two top women in years to come.

Day 3 sees the demotion to court 1 of Roger Federer for the first time in living memory, or so it seems. He will probably relish the change of scenery after the scare he had on Monday. Novak Djokovic will be looking to put Monday nights late late show behind him and move forward against Taylor Dent while Heather Watson hopes to repeat the England cricket team's emphatic victory in a main draw doubles match with fellow Brit Jocelyn Rae against a pair from Australia.

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