Monday, June 29, 2015

WIMBLEDON DAY ONE - ALL ABOUT VENUS

by Karen 


Wimbledon Day One has come and gone and the matches have been as exhilarating as we thought they would be. 

First up how great was Venus Williams today?  If you have not seen the match, get yourself to YouTube or hope that Tennis Channel features this match during Wimbledon Primetime.  It was Venus at her absolute best.  I watched this match at work on the BBC feed and at one point neither commentator had words to describe what Venus was doing out there.  It was just a commanding performance.  It reminded me and many other tennis fans just how much we truly loved seeing Venus at Wimbledon.   The match stats tell you everything you need to know about how efficient Venus was out there today.  If she never plays like this again for the rest of the year, I can say that I am ecstatically happy about this particular performance 



 A good tennis friend of mine tweeted that Venus was Petra’ing.  I had to remind her that Venus invented this kind of tennis.





In other news, Lucie Safarova avoided the upset bug and pulled through in 3 tough sets against Alison Riske.  Belinda Bencic also had to go 3 sets and must be thanking her lucky stars that if not for Pironkova’s untimely injury she would have been out in the first round.  Margarite Gasparan reminded us of the depth of talent on the WTA Tour as she went up an early break against Serena Williams playing brilliant tennis, but like many before her, was unable to sustain that level of play over the match and lost in straight sets. 

Some players are trying to find their grass legs and this was obvious from the many long matches that were played today.  Karolina Pliskova managed to eke out a 3 set win. Carla Suarez-Navarro was the first top seed out of the tournament but I doubt if we can call that an upset. 

Tomorrow sees the first match from the reigning champion on the women’s side, Petra Kvitova as she opens up her title defence against Kiki Bertens.  If Kvitova is not on her game she could see herself facing the exit.  Last year’s finalist Eugenie Bouchard also begins her debut as well as Laura Robson and Caroline Wozniacki. 

Court Assignment
Players
Centre
Bertens v. Kvitova
No. 1
Cepelova v. Halep
No. 2
Makarova v. Vichery
Wozniacki v. Zheng
No. 3
Rodina v. Robson
Duan v. Bouchard
No. 12
Watson v. Garcia (continued from Day 1)
Radwanska (A) v. Hradecka
Gajdosova v. Lisicki
No. 18
Witthoeft v. Kerber
Kuznetsova v. Siegemund
No. 4
Arruabarrena v. Parmentier
Mitu v. Govortsova
No. 5
Pavlyuchenkova v. Barthel (match of the day)
Knapp v. Rybarikova
No. 6
Pliskova (Kr) v. Smitkova
Siniakova v. Allertova (Darkhorse pick to do damage)
No. 17
Doi v. Svitolina
Larsson v. McHale
No. 8
Linette v. Nara
No. 9
Puig v. Nicolescu
No. 10
Lucic-Baroni v. Shvedova
Karatantcheva v. Soler-Espinosa
No. 11
Maria v. Jovanovski
Wickmayer v. a Kulichkova
No. 15
Muguruza v. Lepchenko
Peraira v. Giorgi
No. 16
Paszek v. Dellacqua
Jankovic v. Vesnina
No. 17
Tomljanovic v. Koulakova
Keys v. Voegele (Voegele may pull the upset in this one)
TBA
Bacsinszky v. Georges
Konjuh v. Cornet


  






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