Wild weekshuffles leading pack
Good thing Wimbledon schedules its middle Sunday as a day off. This year, that gave everyone a chance to catch their breath after an eventful week one.
Really, when action resumes tomorrow with all 16 men’s and women’s fourth-round matches, what could week two possibly have in store to equal what the first six days offered?
There was two-time champion Rafael Nadal’s loss in the second round to an unknown guy ranked 100th – a guy who was beaten in his next match.
A day after Nadal’s exit, ending his streak of reaching five consecutive Grand Slam finals, Roger Federer, owner of six titles at the All England Club and a record 16 major trophies overall, dropped the first two sets of his thirdround match . . . before coming back to win.
There was five-time champion Venus Williams’ departure on day one; the only other time in 16 appearances at Wimbledon that she lost in the first round came during her debut in 1997 at age 17. Her younger sister, four-time champion Serena, is still around, but only barely. She pounded a tournamentrecord 23 aces to escape the third round with a 9-7 third-set victory.
As superb as both of the Williams siblings are, neither has pulled off what Serena’s next opponent managed to do yesterday: a perfect set. No woman had ever won all 24 points in a set in a professional match – and only one man had done it – until 65th-ranked Yaroslava Shvedova of Kazakhstan began that way against 10th-seeded Sara Errani of Italy, who was the runner-up at the French Open.
‘‘Hopefully, I’ll be able to win a point in the set,’’ Williams said, looking ahead and keeping a straight face. ‘‘That will be my first goal, and then I’ll go from there.’’ On and on and on it went last week. American qualifier Brian Baker, who was not even ranked a year ago because he was forced off tour for more than half a decade by a series of operations, made it to the fourth round. So did 10th-seeded Mardy Fish, playing in his first tournament after months of treatment for an accelerated heartbeat.
Another American, three-time Wimbledon finalist Andy Roddick, would not say whether he planned to be back after blowing a kiss to the Centre Court crowd after his third-round loss to No 7 seed David Ferrer.
And yet another, Sam Querrey, lost a 17-15 fifth set to 16th-seeded Marin Cilic after 51⁄ hours, the second-longest match in tournament history.
Errani was on the good side of another oddity, when she and her second-round opponent, CoCo Vandweghe of the US, were sent home at match point one evening because it was too dark to play. When they returned the next day, Vandeweghe double-faulted right away, allowing Errani to wrap up a victory after 7 seconds of ‘‘action’’ – and not a single swing of her racket.
There was more, too. The tournament seemed to become enamoured of its retractable roof, pulling it shut over Centre Court so much that defending champion Novak Djokovic remarked: ‘‘I was a little bit surprised, when I saw sunshine, that the roof is closed. Obviously, they’re relying on a forecast that I don’t think is very reliable here.’’
Let us hope he is right about that last part, because the outlook is for a 60 or 70 per cent chance of rain tomorrow, Wednesday and Thursday.
Even the last match of week one had a bit of intrigue: Could Andy Murray – successor to Tim Henman as the Great British Hope – finish off 2006 Australian Open runner-up Marcos Baghdatis before Centre Court turned into a pumpkin? Tournament rules require play to be halted by 11pm, supposedly no matter what, but Murray got a 2-minute extension to that so he could finish.
Now the focus of millions of local fans will get even more intense, the expectation being that the No 4-seeded Murray, who has lost in the semifinals each of the last three years, should be the biggest beneficiary of Nadal’s unexpectedly early exit from the bottom half of the draw.
No matter what, that side will definitely produce a first-time Wimbledon finalist.
Tomorrow’s matchups are Murray v Cilic, No 5 Jo-Wilfried Tsonga v Fish, Baker v No 27 Philipp Kohlschreiber, and Ferrer v No 9 Juan Martin del Potro, the 2009 US Open champion who is the only member of the eight-man group with A look ahead to Wimbledon tomorrow after today’s day off: Men’s fourth-round matches: No 1 Novak Djokovic v Viktor Troicki, No 3 Roger Federer v Xavier Malisse, No 4 Andy Murray v No 16 Marin Cilic, No 5 JoWilfried Tsonga v No 10 Mardy Fish, No 7 David Ferrer v No 9 Juan Martin del Potro, No 18 Richard Gasquet v No 31 Florian Mayer, No 26 Mikhail Youzhny v Denis Istomin, No 27 Philipp Kohlschreiber v qualifier Brian Baker. Women’s fourth-round matches: No 1 Maria Sharapova v No 15 Sabine Lisicki, No 2 Victoria Azarenka v No 14 Ana Ivanovic, No 3 Agnieszka Radwanska v qualifier Camila Giorgi, No 4 Petra Kvitova v No 24 Francesca Schiavone, No 6 Serena Williams v wild card Yaroslava Shvedova, No 8 Angelique Kerber v Kim Clijsters, No 17 Maria Kirilenko v No 30 Peng Shuai, No 21 Roberta Vinci v Tamira Paszek. Noteworthy I: The 126th-ranked Brian Baker, of Nashville, Tennessee, is trying to become the third American qualifier to reach the men’s quarterfinals at Wimbledon, joining John McEnroe (1977) and Roger Federer’s coach, Paul Annacone (1984). Noteworthy II: Maria Sharapova is trying to become the first woman to win the French Open and Wimbledon in the same year since Serena Williams did it in 2002. Statworthy I: Richard Gasquet is the only man who has not lost a set so far. Statworthy II: Agnieszka Radwanska and Maria Kirilenko have lost the fewest games of any women still in the draw, 11. a Grand Slam title on his resume.
On the top half, Djokovic – seeking to win his fifth title in the last seven majors – and Federer – aiming for a record-tying seventh Wimbledon championship – are on course for a semifinal showdown.
The fourth-round pairings are Djokovic v Viktor Troicki, Federer v Xavier Malisse, No 18 Richard Gasquet v No 31 Florian Mayer, and No 26 Mikhail Youznhy v Denis Istomin.
Only Djokovic and Federer have won major championships; none of the other six has made so much as one Grand Slam final.
Wimbledon is the only Grand Slam tournament that takes a day off midway through. It is also the only one that schedules 16 matches on the second Monday. In addition to Williams v Shvedova, the other matches in the bottom half of the women’s draw are No 2 Victoria Azarenka v No 14 Ana Ivanovic, defending champion Petra Kvitova v No 24 Francesca Schiavone, and No 21 Roberta Vinci v Tamira Paszek.
On the top half, it is No 1 Maria Sharapova v No 15 Sabine Lisicki, No 8 Angelique Kerber v four-time major champion Kim Clijsters in her last Wimbledon appearance, No 3 Agnieszka Radwanska v 145th-ranked qualifier Camila Giorgi, and No 17 Maria Kirilenko v No 30 Peng Shuai.
‘‘Everyone is playing everyone tough nowadays,’’ Serena Williams said. ‘‘You can’t underestimate anyone.’’