OK I'm not onto Day 7 of the Wimbledon championships posts, and today we had one or two interesting relevations but most of the play was held up by rain delay, which saw most of the play suspended for the day from 4pm onward.
Sooooo on the ladies side starting with Maria Sharapova, we had the upset of the day, as the World No.1 took on Sabine Lisicki of Germany (saucy!). Last year they played each other in the semi finals and Sharapova gubbed Lisicki quite easily, but this time tables were turned as Lisicki came out firing and not many players can hit Sharapova off the court, but Lisicki on this occassion did! Sharapova also throughout the match struggled with her serve with the windy conditions, and it was Lisicki who was the better player and in the 2nd set, Lisicki pulled off a big upset by serving an ace on her 2nd serve to put Sharapova out of Wimbledon in 6-4, 6-3. Well this certainly was a bit of a shock result, especially given Sharapova's form coming into the championships from her triumph at the French Open. However it has to be said that Sharapova really does struggle with blustery conditions and this certainly was the case today, which leaves the remaining players no doubt pleased they have one less top seed to beat.
In other ladies matches, Kim Clijsters was also upset by the German player and World No.9, Angelique Kerber, who flattened the Belgium with a straight sets 6-1, 6-1 victory. However Petra Kvitova managed to come through her match against Francesca Schiavone, which was a real tough battle for the first two sets, with Fran taking the first and Petra the second (after a double fault from Fran). But in the 3rd set, light rain was drizzling on the court, which made the grass damp, which Fran complained about, and played was briefly stopped, however play soon after resumed, and with this still in Francesca's mind, her play got steadily worse, letting Petra to break twice and close out the match in 4-6, 7-5, 6-1. And in Petra's next match she will face Serena Williams, who battled past her opponent Yaroslava Shvedova in 6-1, 2-6, 7-5. This promises to be a real cracker, although I would favour Serena to knock out Petra, given her form and determination, Serena is definitely back at Wimbledon. And Victoria Azarenka had zero problem closing out her match against Ana Ivanovic as she ony conceded one game in securing her place to the quarter finals, with an emphatic 6-1, 6-0 win. Vika definitely showed her form in this match and next up she will play her quarter final opponent from last year, Tamira Paszek, but this could promise to be a tougher test for the Belarusian.
So onto the men's matches, most of which were cut short because of the rain delays, but the matches scheduled for centre court took place. Starting with Roger Federer who played Xavier Malisse, who proved to be quite troublesome for Roger. And Roger himself had back problems at one point during the 1st set as he had to walk off court to have his back looked at, and he came back on later, with the first set going to a tiebreak, which Federer won. In the 2nd set, Fed found his range and started to cut Malisse down to size, breaking him twice, but in the 3rd, Roger dropped his level and let Malisse in the door to take the 3rd set. And despite going a break down in 4th, Roger soon broke back and went on to break Malisse to secure his place in the quarter finals with a 7-6, 6-1, 4-6, 6-3 win. This match was in itself quite entertaining and Malisse played his part with some great shot making, but it does raise some fitness concerns with Federer and his back. Federer should make it to the semi finals to face Djokovic, but how fit and well will he be when he get's there as it looks to he in doubt that he could win against him.
As for Djokovic well he had no such problems at all from his Serbain compatriot, Viktor Troicki, which he was scheduled to play on centre court last tonight. The match itself was a walk in the park (or court) for Djokovic as Troicki barely made a dent on the World No.1 throughout, and despite one or two break point chances, Troicki wasn't able to convert any of them, and it took no more than 1 hour and 30 minutes to win out in 6-3, 6-1, 6-3. Djokovic clearly had raised his level in this match and he looked in terrific form throughout as Troicki struggled to do anything with Djokovic's blistering returns and vollies. And its safe to say that Djokovic is looking by far the sharpest of all the players in the event and I would be very surprised if he wasn't lifting the title by the end of the tournament (well he is the world No.1!).
Which brings me on to the last match of my post, which was between Andy Murray and Marin Cilic, however the match was suspended due to the rain as it took place out on court No.1, where there is no roof! But as a summary of the match so far, both players got off to a slow tentative start, but it was Andy that made the decisive break to take the opening set, and he continued to boss the points in the 2nd set, breaking Cilic again at 3-1, but play was suspended before Andy could finish his service game, leaving the score so far at 7-5, 3-1.
Despite a poor start from Andy getting broken in his opening service game, he did well to pick up his game as he went on, and Cilic looked like a broken man by the time play was suspended. However with the rain delay this could allow Cilic to get back into the game tomorrow, which could swing the pendulum in Cilic's favour, so Andy will need to be wary of his opponent when play resumes tomorrow.
Which brings me onto a bugbear about the scheduling of the matches today, as I think the organisers have made a real mess of it today, and they knew that rain was forecast for today, but yet they still neglected to put Andy's match on centre court, which its should have been! Not only that, but when play was briefly suspended on centre court in Federer/Malisse match they decided to leave the roof open to see if the rain would go off, for what must have been at least half an hour! Why didn't they just shut the roof straight away and allow play to get underway????? Also later on when Djokovic had finished his match, it was just about 8pm, which easily left another 3 hours of play left on centre court. But they decided not to bother rescheduling Andy's match to centre court, despite the fact they still had more than enough time left to get the match done!
And it makes you wonder just who is behind the scheduling as I think they need a good kick up the arse with all the time wasting they have created today. And tomorrow Andy is scheduled to finish off the match on court 1 again, but again the weather doesn't look promising, which means he could have more delays! So I really am not impressed with the Wimbledon organisers choices, not only that but I think they have really handed Andy a bum steer this year (that rhymed!) giving him such a tough draw, with 3 top 10 players left in his side of the draw in Ferrer, Tsonga and Del Potro, meanwhile Djokovic only has Federer to worry about, who's fitness it now seems is in question! Its beggars belief lol! Anyway I'm getting a bit carried away with myself.
But I have to say I really do hope that Andy does makes the final and
Djokovic is there as it would be great to see the two of them do battle
once again in a slam final, even if Andy loses, and if he does I hope he doesn't get a thrashing like he did last year, but again I'm getting ahead of myself, there are a few matches to go yet. But if Andy does lose out early I think the Wimbledon organisers are in part to blame because of all the bad decisions they have made, in order to appear like they aren't guilty of favouritism. But Andy is the British No.1, so he should be on centre court, and I think its a disgrace to be honest. And they have also given Ferrer and Del Potro the centre court spot today so yet again I cannot get over how wrong their decisions are, and its like they don't even want Andy to win Wimbledon.
Sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo that's all the news for today, and its not all quite what we could have hoped it would be as there are still plenty of matches to finish, with Tsonga and Fish still to finish their match too, and Ferrer and Delpo's match never even got underway, so still more to go.
So I will report back tomorrow once the results are in, so to speak, unless the rain halts everything again!
Till then bye!!
No comments:
Post a Comment