Wimbledon Notable Events

The weather has cleared and a full schedule has resumed.

Big upset.

            Garbine Mugurza went down to Jana Cepelova in the second round in straight sets.  This is undoubtedly a disappointment for Muguruza, who made the final last year, and for fans hoping to see a finals rematch between her and Serena Williams.  It will be interesting to see how Muguruza responds to this setback.  She needs to remember that in professional sports, the operative question is not “What have you done for me lately?” but rather is, “What are you doing right now?”.  This tournament is over for her, so she needs to just move on.

            Another surprising upset involved the loss by Kristina Mladenovic to Aliaksandra Sasnovich, who is ranked in the 90’s.  Mladenovic looked decidedly uncomfortable on the grass.  I still like her future prospects, though.

Best match.

            The best match I’ve seen on the women’s side thus far was between Eugenie Bouchard and Johanna Konta.  Bouchard was playing shortly after winning her first round match, and was on center court against a Brit with a lot of fan support.  Konta has had a spectacular rise in the rankings over the last year and plays within her abilities very well.

            Konta played wonderful tennis in this match, particularly in the second set, where her serve and forehand were huge and her shot placement was impeccable.  Her play was not enough, though, to beat Bouchard, who played tremendous defense and used that defense to extend rallies and wait for opportunities to open points up.  Bouchard’s pattern in the past has been to simply try to win rallies immediately.  Bouchard and countryman Raonic never seem to use the drop shot, which would help them both in situations where they draw a weak serve return and find themselves close to the net with the opponent on his/her heels.  Nonetheless, Bouchard’s versatility, patience and steely nerves were amazing in this dramatic, hard fought, extremely well played match.  Eugenie won’t have long to relax and enjoy this very important success, as her next opponent is Cibulkova, who is back at full health and is coming off a grass court warm up tournament win.

Lots of Americans win.

            On the women’s side, Serena and Venus Williams, McHale, Sloane Stephens, Madison Keys, Coco Vandeweghe all won.   On the men’s side, Querrey, Jack Sock, Stevie Johnson, Donald Young and John Isner all are still in it.  Soon these Americans will be playing other Americans – the burden of riches.  Serena Williams plays McHale next, for example.

Men’s surprises

            Dominic Thiem went down to Jiri Vesely in three tiebreakers.  That can happen on grass with a big serving opponent.  Grigor Dimitrov hasn’t lost yet – something of a surprise these days.  He plays Steve Johnson next.  Watch Alaxander Zverev out of the corner of your eye.  Bernie Tomic also is still playing.  If Tomic really expects to be a top 10 player he must win more of these early round matches.  So far, so good for him.   Juan Martin del Potro (so good to see him playing!) has Stan Wawrinka next.  This match could be interesting. 

This blogger is away for July 4 weekend.  See you all on the 5^th, when we should have caught up on all delayed early round matches and be poised for some dramatic encounters!