The second Monday is the round of sixteen for men's and ladies singles at Wimbledon, providing that rain has not delayed the schedule, and so far things were as planned. I had another Court One ticket, and this allowed me the privilege of watching one of the most engrossing women's matches for quite some time. Defending champion Serena Williams, who had progressively shown why pundits were selecting her to win the title, had to navigate a way around French player and Eastbourne winner from a week ago, Marion Bartoli. Bartoli was a finalist here a few years back, and is currently enjoying a resurgence of form, as evidenced by reaching the semis at Roland Garros, and both she and Serena fought ferociously early in the match to gain any vital edge.
As much as Williams tried to break through Bartoli's serve, it stood up extremely well, with a very high percentage of first entries finding their mark. The inconsistency of Serena's forehand was not hurting her for awhile, but this with some mental errors contributed to a break of the powerful American serve in the sixth game. Bartoli held firm against the expected resistance from Serena, and served out the first set 6-3. The Eastbourne form was holding true, and Williams had a big fight on her hands.
Serena serving first in the second set was able to place a little scoreboard pressure on Bartoli, but the French girl was up for the any challenge today and games went with serve, and we witnessed some fine stroke play to comprise the points. After serving at 4-5 to stay in the set, Bartoli then astonishingly broke Serena's serve in the 11th game, and the unthinkable appeared likely - straight sets loss for the champ. However, the pressure of serving for a quarter final spot, and some excellent Williams tennis conjured up a reply service break which in turn meant a second set tie break. There must have been at least three match points that Serena saved.
The tie break basically went with serve, and Serena typically saved a match point at 5 points to 6 with an ace. However, Bartoli seized on a Serena mistake and proceeded to serve out the match with her fifth match point. 6-3 7-6 and Bartoli now on course for a semifinal with Sharapova, but with so many upsets in the women's draw, who can predict beyond the quarters with any confidence? All that can be said is that Bartoli is red hot on grass or any surface at present and you would have to fancy her chances of still being around in the last days of the tournament (not as a spectator either). For Serena, the effort was fantastic given virtually no preparation, and the remainder of the season should see her back to the top of the tree, if not in the rankings, maybe with another US Open.
Joining her sister on the sidelines was Venus, for the second successive year a victim of Bulgarian Tsvetana Pironkova. Another huge shock was the dumping of world number one Caroline Wozniacki by Dominika Cibulkova, especially considering the Slovak had lost the first set 1-6 to Wozniacki in quick time. Four top ten players are amongst the eight quarter finalists - 4th seed Victoria Azarenka, 5th seed Maria Sharapova, 8th seed Petra Kvitova and 9th seed Marion Bartoli.
Of those left, only Sharapova has won a Grand Slam tournament and she has won three including Wimbledon in 2004.
Predictability has continued with the top men's players though, with Novak Djokovic the second seed clearly a class above his opponent in the second match on Court One. Michael Llodra likes the grass and his singles results over the past year or so belie his some times reputation as a doubles specialist. However, Novak has lost just the once this year, and it took possibly the greatest player ever, playing one of his greatest matches ever, to achieve that, so the mountain would always be around the Everest equivalent. Last year's semi finalist systematically took the Frenchman apart and cruised to a quarter final 6-3 6-3 6-3. Scarily, Djokovic is looking more at ease on this surface as each second passes.
The big surprise is Novak's opponent in the quarter final - Australian qualifier Bernard Tomic, who in the past has been the subject of criticism for enjoying too many wildcards and other acts of favouritism. Now everyone loves him because he has legitimately won his way through three qualifying rounds and four main draw matches to be in the last eight. Whatever happens now, his ranking will be no more than about 75 to 80, allowing direct entry to a multitude more tournaments around the world on the major tour. At 18, if managed properly, he certainly is a prospect for Australian tennis in the years ahead.
Roger Federer played the final match on Court One, and Mikhail Youzhny from Russia caused the Swiss sensation more than a few disturbances in the first set. The two looked very solid on serve and when the tie break arrived no one in the Federer camp was at all concerned given that Roger handles these OK. However the two forehands long and backhand wide to hand the Russian the set were entirely out of character, and definitely going to make Federer late for dinner.
As is so often the case, though with Federer's opponents, they have been going full throttle, while Roger has another several gears to shift through. In the remaining three sets, some of the tennis displayed by Roger required a change up of a gear or two and reminded us all why he may very well win his seventh crown here in 2011. 6-7 6-3 6-3 6-3.
With Nadal having the toughest win over Del Potro and Murray easing past Gasquet, the top four seeds are converging ever ominously towards semi showdowns.
With the utmost respect to the other four quarter finalists, Tsonga, Fish, Lopez and Tomic would be very big headlines should any of them manage a spot in the last four. That they have reached this far is a credit to them.
No comments:
Post a Comment