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Year 101 Wimbledon: Opening Rounds
There are times when the first week of a Slam is quite interesting. This is not one of those times. All of the top 16 made the fourth round, 7 of the top 8 made the quarterfinals. There are some matches worth noting, but pretty much this is a 'yawn and get to the real stage' week this year.
A fun third-rounder between German players; (23) Davide de Laurentis lost narrowly to (10) Johann Przalowik, 2-6, 7-5, 7-6(4), 3-6, 9-7. Then there was a four-tiebreak affair with Matias Aldecoa losing eventually to Ene Caballero. (16) Ale Ballok slid past (18) Patrik Rask 7-6 (2), 6-7(2), 6-1 .... and 7-6(16). That's quite the tiebreak there, 18-16! (11) Eddy Copperfield is still out there battling, surviving Santino Consiglio in five sets.
Fourth round produced two more five-setters, both with the higher-seeded player winning. Caballero was outlasted by Themis Xanthos, the young Spaniard led two sets to one after fierce battling in the first three sets, but faded as the Cypriot rallied. Then (8) Solitris Papadias got the upper hand against time and (12) Dominic Stricker, 6-4, 6-7(3), 7-6(5), 4-6, 6-4. That one was tense all the way to the end. Our lone upset comes at the expense, yet again, of (5) Jochen Weigle. This is definitely a trend. In another all-tiebreak affair, Przalowik advanced 7-6(5), 6-7(3), 7-6(1), 7-6(9). It's hard to imagine this year being anything but a big disappointment for Weigle at this point. It wouldn't even shock me if he doesn't make the Tour Finals.
Elsewhere ...
Sushant Srivastava gave another try at an FT1 this week. Losing in the first round of doubles was soon forgotten as he won the singles title comfortably in Monaco, his first hardware at the top futures tier. That's a big bounce-back for him and a step in the right direction. Girish Raychaudhari won JG4 Maracaibo in singles, runner-up in doubles. Chandrasekharan has had some well-earned time off for training; he's out there for another futures event this coming week.
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