The top seeds continue to roll. Nadal has played Ryan Sweeting twice this year, once at the Australian Open and once at Indian Wells, winning both handily. He lost 4 games in both. Surely, he had to feel pretty confident playing Sweeting. Although Sweeting did win a few more games, he still lost handily in straight sets.
Nadal might have faced Milos Raonic in the third round, but Raonic retired against Gilles Muller. Muller was the last man, other than Roger Federer, to beat Rafa at Wimbledon. Muller is a solid lefty, but given the number of years since that last loss, Muller is unlikely to prevent Nadal from getting into the fourth round where he might face Juan Martin del Potro.
Andy Murray had a relatively comfortable win over Tobias Kamke in straight sets. However, he’ll be facing tougher competition in the next two rounds. He faces veteran Ivan Ljubicic who had a surprisingly easy win over Sergiy Stakhovsky. After that, Murray might meet Richard Gasquet who took Murray to 5 sets in last year’s French Open. Gasquet also beat Federer earlier this year.
del Potro had his match against Oliver Rochus called due to darkness. Rochus won the first set in a tiebreak, and is one of the shortest players on tour certainly the shortest in the top 100 at 5’6″ (168 cm). Rochus has had some victories against top players, most notably Novak Djokovic in Miami in 2010.
Andy Roddick continued his progress through Wimbledon beating Victor Hanescu in straight sets. Thomas Berdych, who has not had a good year since reaching Wimbledon final last year, had an easy win over Julien Benneteau. He may be a tough guy to handle once he meets a top seed.
Mardy Fish had to work in his straight set win over Denis Istomin. Istomin took Berdych to 5 sets at Wimbledon last year. Fish next plays Robin Haase who beat Fernando Verdasco in 4 sets. Haase pushed Nadal to 5 sets last year, thus Fish is meeting players that lost to the eventual Wimbledon finalists last year.
Kevin Anderson needed 5 sets to beat Marchenko of the Ukraine. He faces Novak Djokovic in the next round. Lukasz Kubot beat Ivo Karlovic in straight sets. Karlovic has lost early quite a bit at Wimbledon despite a huge serve. Grigor Dmitrov had a tough straight set win over Stebe of Germany. He’ll face Tsonga in the second round.
Gasquet beat Kunitsyn. Monfils beat Zmelja in four sets. Lopez beat Schuettler in 4 sets as well. Tursunov, who hasn’t played top flight tennis in quite some time, beat Ernests Gulbis in four sets, with tiebreaks in sets 3 and 4. This marks yet another first round exit for Gulbis. Simone Bolelli upset Stan Wawrinka in straight sets, two of which went to tiebreaks. Gilles Simon beat Dudi Sela in straight sets. He plays the winner of Rochus-del Potro. The winner of that plays Rafa.
