Wimbledon Highlights

Completion of the first round has been delayed by weather.  Here are some of the notable events.

All the “big guns” won their first round matches.

Bad luck for Borna.  

Borna Coric, a youngster with a lot of potential, would have been helped immensely by a good showing at Wimbledon.  However, he had the misfortune of playing Ivo Karlovic in the first round, with Karlovic having a good day.  Karlovic won the first set tiebreak with a backhand that clipped the net and fell over.  The rest you can imagine.  Coric should not get down over this.  Tomorrow is another day for him.

Muguruza prevails

As predicted in this blog, Camila Giorgi gave Muguruza all she could handle before falling to the #2 seed in three sets.  I’ve seen several of Giorgi’s matches this year, and it’s quite apparent to me that she receives extensive coaching from her father via hand signals.  In a match earlier this year, the dad actually changed seats every time Giorgi moved from the deuce to ad court and back again.  This behavior bewildered the TV commentators, but to me, the explanation is obvious:  the father wanted to give the daughter the best possible view of his hand signals.  I haven’t been able to decode his “nose rubs”, “forehead wipes”, etc. because the camera only shows him occasionally.  However, this guy’s history of being less than honest, combined with his behavior in Camila’s matches, persuade me that he is breaking the coaching rule.

Willis wins

Marcus Willis, a Brit ranked 772, has been the darling of the press after making it through qualifying and winning his first round match.  He next has the dubious pleasure of playing Roger Federer, who has been very generous to Willis in his press interviews.  I’m sure Roger knows that anyone standing across the net from you at the second round of Wimbledon is a great tennis player.  Expect the match to be close at first as Federer evaluates Willis’ strengths and weaknesses.   It will be interesting to see how many ranking positions Willis gains after this showing!

Vandeweghe under way.

            Coco Vandeweghe beat Kateryna Bondarenko very impressively.  Coco played some points in a manner worthy of a top 5 player.  She may finally be putting it all together.