Given Day 1’s scares, most people probably felt that Day 2 would return more to form with seeded players taking care of business, and basically that’s how the day has started.
Rafael Nadal played Kei Nishikori in the first round. Nishikori is only 20 years old having trained at Bollettieri’s. Nishikori had a wrist injury that took him off tour for more than half a year last year. He started returning to some tournament play at the beginning of this year, playing somewhat sparingly and mostly playing Challenger events. Prior to his injury, Nishikori did win a title over James Blake at Delray Beach in 2008.
Nishikori got down a bit early, losing the first set, 6-2. In the second set, both held serve til 4-all, but then Nishikori played a poor game and Nadal won the second set, 6-4. Nishikori also got down a break in the third but managed to break back on a crosscourt forehand that left Nadal on his backside as he slipped changing directions. Nadal broke again to take a one break lead. While Nishikori had chances to break again, it was not to be. Nadal served out the match to 6-4 for a comfortable win.
Nadal was sporting his collar-less white shirt for Wimbledon that showed off more of his chest. And, of course, he was wearing his half-million dollar watch.
Early in the day, Querrey had what promised to be a tough match against Sergiy Stakhovsky. Stakhovsky had just won the UNICEF Open in the Netherlands. The danger of playing a match a day or two prior to a Slam is often fatigue. Players like to play just before a Slam because all the top players tend to avoid these tournaments in order to practice, so they use the opportunity to win a tournament. The trouble is most players aren’t used to winning tournaments and frequently lose in the first or second round. So playing all those rounds adds some wear and tear, and by the time they show up to play the next tournament, they often fade badly. Stakhovsky chose to retire after going down 7-6, 6-3, and down 2-1 in the third.
Murray started his bid for the Wimbledon title down a break, and it took him sometime before he was able to break back then break again to take the first set, 7-5. He then steamrolled in the second set, 6-1. He’s currently up 3-1 in the third, up a break in the third.
Tsonga continued to show that he struggles against big servers. He won his match over American, Robert Kendrick, but needed two tiebreaks and four sets to do it.
David Ferrer had a relatively quick match over tour veteran Nicolas Kiefer in straight sets.
Robin Haase “upset” James Blake. Blake hasn’t played much tennis in a while. He played last week, but lost early. Haase, meanwhile, is a tall Dutch player with a big game that the Dutch had hoped would fare well. Straight set win for Haase. Blake goes back to the US (presumably) to contemplate his game some more.
Dolgopolov shows his adeptness for the grass. He had a reasonable clay season and is now into the second round beating Marco Chiudinelli of Switzerland, making him the second Swiss player to fall by the wayside (Wawrinka being the other).
Gilles Simon had a comfortable straight set win over Spaniard Guillermo Alcaide.
Paul-Henri Mathieu beat fellow Frenchman Marc Giquel in four sets.
Marcos Baghdatis got upset by Lukas Lacko of Slovakia in four sets.
Soderling is winning over Ginepri pretty easily, 6-2, 4-1. Murray just went up 5-1 in the third set and should close out his match pretty soon.
