So the queuing debut was a success, better in fact, with the desired ground pass turning into a Court Two reserved seat because of lower demand (maybe due to weather forecast). Irrespective, I was happy to part with an additional 22 pounds for a guaranteed seat and the opportunity to see Mardy Fish play Denis Istomin and any other matches that may be played on the show court.
Clearly now an expert at Wimbledon maneuvering with my one day's experience, I knew exactly where to go once I has purchased the ticket. Of course you are not allowed far at all initially - the ropes are dropped at 10.30 for us to venture off to the various parts of the ground that we wish to attend.
Seated ready, not too many rows from the court itself (ominously without net up at this point) and perfect view of the action starting at 12.00, the rain came. The show courts have screens so I checked to see if the Centre Court matches starting at 1.00 would be shown on the screen on Court Two given that we did not have a roof but for the Venus Williams / Kimiko Date-Krumm match the Centre Court roof was indeed in place.
We watched a most entertaining women's second round match on the screen under umbrellas. I thought to myself - this is living the Wimbledon experience. Venus had an experience she would rather forget as the Japanese player who is almost eligible for the pension at 40 troubled the five time champ with her classy grass court display. The American serve was broken twice and Date-Krumm had two chances to serve the set out which she wasted. A tie break followed, and assisted by some Venus errors, and despite wasting four more set points Kimiko won the first set 7-6.
Venus asserted herself in the second set and the powerful forehand enabled her to comfortably hold serve and place pressure on Kimiko. One early break was sufficient and 6-3 to Williams.
The decider must have been a beauty to watch (Williams won 8-6) but unfortunately we were unable to view it since the weather had cleared and we had to be content with live tennis on our court. Mardy Fish from USA, ranked 9 in the world was playing a second round match against a player in the bottom quartile of the top 100 Denis Istomin from Uzbekistan.
The first set gave us big serving from both players but some careless points from the American coupled with some great passing shots courtesy of Istomin, resulted in Fish being a break down. The fact that he fought back, and that he could proceed to win the set says a lot for the value of winning the big points, because at the end of the set we wondered "how did the better player not take that set?"
The tennis was of high standard - not just because there was some being played and we were convincing ourselves that it was worth our money and time - but some genuinely crisp shot making from both players and consistently good serving made it so. Again against what we deemed to be the flow, Fish was able to place scoreboard pressure on Istomin and once again win the set. The cliche "scoreboard doesn't tell the story" is probably apt here. However scoreboards are not paid to relate fiction or non-fiction to an audience - they are there to relate the statistical reality. Currently the reality for Istomin was a second round losers cheque unless something dramatic changed.
More of the same in what would be the final set - not much difference in output but an edge in class when it counts. Mardy Fish through to the third round in straight sets.
The second match featured two Russians including last year's runner-up Vera Zvonareva. Her opponent Elena Vesnina gave Vera slightly more trouble than the second seed's first round opponent, by taking one game off her in the first set. Twenty three minutes was all it required and probably as many unforced errors by Elena.
In the first round despite taking the first set to love Vera ended up winning the match in 3 sets, and it seemed at many stages during the second set today that the same would be required. Vesnina lifted the standard of her game and played some wonderful tennis shots, making attractive use of the drop shot and net approach to defy Vera's clear advantage in cross court rallying.
The girls forgot how to hold serve, once Vera failed to serve the match out and twice Vesnina failed to serve the set out. It was always going to be a tie break. Sadly a couple of cases of bad judgement and one of bad luck counted against Elena and Vera survived into the third round 6-1 7-6.
The longest day of the year enabled us to fit in possibly the best set of tennis for Court Two for the day. Juan Martin Del Potro, still on the rise following his comeback to tennis after that long layoff, played Olivier Rochus, the veteran Belgian about half the size of the 2009 US Open Champ from Argentina.
The David and Goliath story rang true, as Del Potro regularly belted serves around the 200-205 kmh range and held serve quickly, handing back the responsibility of reply to Rochus who relied less on his power - AAA battery compared to 240 volts - but more on his tennis smarts, agility around the court, ability to read Del Potro's movements.
In the tie break that came after twelve top class games of tennis, we witnessed several momentum shifts, but the most important was the last, and that gave a surprise first set to the lower ranked Belgian who took the 7-6 lead in the match.
Too late for another set to be completed, the play was suspended for the evening. We had been at Wimbledon, or it's surrounds, for about 14 successive hours.
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