TENNIS WIMBLEDON MEN'S SINGLES CHAMPIONSHIP:IF ROGER Federer hasn't been having it the way he would like in this year's championships, Rafa Nadal may understand how he's feeling. The Wimbledon champion of 2008 and Roland Garros winner this year dropped his first sets of the championship to Dutchman Robin Haase and in the end had to stoke up some Spanish brilliance to overcome the 23-year-old world number 51.
Haase took the first set 7-5 and when Nadal furiously replied to win the second 6-2, thoughts turned to the next round and a four-set finish for the second seed.
But Haase was not about to fold to the world number one and rebounded with a 6-3 third set to again push Nadal into second place.
Once more the Spaniard lifted himself, hit back over 22 minutes for 6-0 in the fourth set and then settled the match 6-3 in the fifth set in two hours, 22 minutes. It was far from straightforward for many people’s favourite.
“I felt in the match he was playing very well, so I had to follow,” said Nadal afterwards “Right now I like to go day to day, keep working and trying my best.”
Andy Murray stuck to his script more rigorously on Centre Court and didn’t embarrass the watching Queen Elizabeth by losing his second round match against Jarkko Nieminen.
The last British player standing sailed through the match to set up a meeting with 26th seed Gilles Simon.
It took him just an hour and 42 minutes to carve the Finn out of the draw 6-3, 6-4, 6-2 in the hope of advancing further than his previous best, last year’s semi-final where he lost to runner-up to Federer, Andy Roddick.
The 23-year-old is on his own and is the only British man or woman to win his first round match this year, of eight players to start the event.
It’s the first time in Wimbledon history that British players have fallen so spectacularly.
But it is the first time since 2005 Murray has come to Wimbledon without winning any titles in the first six months of the season. Before last year’s trumpeted run he arrived as the Queens champion. But his hopes are up there with his confidence.
“He (Simon) has had a problem with his knee the last few months,” said Murray.
“He’s a tough player. He’s beaten Federer a couple of times and had some tough matches with Djokovic. He’s a very difficult player to play against, very unorthodox.”
Jo-Wilfried Tsonga might have said the same thing about Alexander Dolgopolov, as you might expect from a man with four Os in his surname. The 21-year-old from the Ukraine only made his Grand Slam debut last month in Roland Garros in this, his breakthrough season.
Tsonga, ranked ten in the world couldn’t have expected almost four hours on court after he raced to a two set lead 6-4, 6-4.
But Dolgopolov stunned the Frenchman with a feisty offensive, winning the third and fourth sets 6-7(5), 5-7 and before he knew it Tsonga was scrapping out the match in the fifth set, finally winning 10-8.
But the magical tennis from the Ukrainian marks him out as a name to watch and explains why he has shot up the rankings.
This time last year he was languishing at 370 in the world. But this year he has propelled himself to the 43rd position. While Tsonga was by far the more experienced player, it was tough to separate the two. His rapid-fire service action and ability to cover the court dangerously stretched the 2008 Australian Open finalist.
