Wimbledon Diary Day Two

 

Originally published on: 22/06/11 00:11

First up on centre court was Serena Williams in her much anticipated return to competitive play.  The 2010 defending champion defeated Aravane Rezai 63 36 61. Immediately after the match with tears in her eyes she admitted that she had never before cried tears of joy, coming out of what she described as a “disaster year”. In her presser, she happily talked about her outfit, “the inspiration was classic. So I kind of took tennis lines and brought it to tennis with a cardigan as well as the dress”. The American got a huge round of applause when she first stepped onto centre court, cardie and all.

Roger Federer defeated Mikhail Kukushkin in straight sets 76 (2) 64 62 and the six times Wimbledon Champion stated his intent in the first game which he won in under a minute, worth noting that by contrast, Serena took 9 minutes before she took her first game.

Novak Djokovic laid his marker too, with a swift straight sets win over France’s Jeremy Chardy 64 61 61, so fast that Andrew Jarrett, Wimbledon referee re-scheduled Maria Sharapova’s match against Anna Chakvetadze onto centre court to start at 6.55 pm. MaSha was victorious with the loss of only 3 games 62 61. So a great day on centre came to a close before a drop of rain had fallen to oil the wheels of the roof.

There were some upsets, most notably the 15th seed, Jelena Jankovic who was defeated by Spain’s Maria Jose Martinez 57 64 63 and 10th seed, Sam Stosur dispatched by Melanie Czink 63 64. There were some tussles with Fernando Verdasco saving a match point to defeat Radek Stepanek 26 46 63 76 (6) 97 and in a non plaque making sequel, John Isner defeated his friend Nicolas Mahut in straight sets 76 62 76 “I’m just really thrilled to have won the third set because if I lose that third set, then chances are we don’t finish. You know our match goes onto a second day”. Heather Watsons’ match against Mathilde Johansson that was scheduled to follow on Court 3 was moved to Wednesday.

And how would you describe Andrea Petkovic’s celebration dance today, after her victory over Stephanie Foretz Gacon? It was a twist followed by a wiggle and we hope that we will see that again in the next few weeks, next up for the German is Stefanie Dubois.

There were plenty of cricketers packed into the Royal Box today to witness all the action and as Wimbledon rolls onto Day 3, with Andy Murray second up on court 1 on Wednesday, we hope that play will continue uninterrupted tomorrow.

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