Wimbledon Week 1 Roundup

Wimbledon Week 1 Roundup

With the second Monday of this year’s Wimbledon now well underway, it seems an appropriate time to look back at the past week and assess the shocks and success stories thus far.

There were some big early shocks as third seed Novak Djokovic and twice beaten Wimbledon finalist Andy Roddick both bowed out in the second round. This will have been a major disappointment to both players but especially the young Serb, who was so impressive in his narrow defeat to Rafa Nadal in the Queen’s Club final just a week previous. Djokovic’s exit means Nadal looks like the only realistic challenger to the reigning champ Roger Federer, looking for his 6^th successive title.

The two big upsets in the women’s draw were the second round exit of Maria Sharapova, the champion of 2004, and the third round loss of world number 1 and winner of last month’s French Open title, Ana Ivanovic. Both women looked devoid of ideas and threw in a succession of unforced errors in defeat to Alla Kudryavtseva and Jie Zheng respectively.

Among the success we can of course count the usual suspects of Federer, Nadal and, in the women’s draw, the Williams sisters. All have displayed their characteristic strength of mind and no little amount of skill in their passage through the rounds. Indeed, as I write, Federer has just performed a demolition job on the only other player on the men’s circuit to have won a Wimbledon Singles title, Leyton Hewitt.

Nadal is the obvious challenger to Federer but there have been a few other players in the men’s draw who have impressed enough to be worth a mention. Former world number 1 Marat Safin has looked in really good touch, especially in his defeat of Djokovic. He has always had the shots but he now looks to have regained some of the mental toughness that has brought two previous Grand Slam titles. If he keeps this belief he could be a danger to anyone – and he’s on Fed’s side of the draw!

Also on Fed’s side of the draw – indeed playing him in the quarter finals – is Mario Ancic. Ancic remains the last person to beat Fed on grass and has looked like a man in form so far this tournament. However, he is already carrying a couple of minor injuries and is likely to be tired following a gruelling five set win over Fernando Verdasco.

Marcos Baghdatis, Janko Tipsarevic and Marin Cilic have all come through with relative ease, but the player that I’ve been really been impressed with is home favourite Andy Murray. I keep expecting the weight of pressure to tell but with every passing round Murray has looked more and more confident and, crucially, resilient. He will have his work cut out in the next round, however, as he is due to play the exceptionally gifted, if erratic, young Frenchman Richard Gasquet.

The tie is likely to be one to savour as both will see it as opportunity to advance against a relatively inexperienced opponent. We wait to see whether Murray will have the answers to Gasquet’s staggering array of shots.