Sometimes a good head-to-head is all you need to feel good about your chances. Hewitt lead Soderling 3-1. However, 2 of the wins were in 2004 when Soderling was starting on tour and Hewitt was still closer to the top of his game. They didn’t play again until 2009 when Hewitt won in Cincy in 3 sets. Soderling returned the favor in 2010 when he beat Hewitt for the first time in 3 sets.
Hewitt took the first two sets 7-5, 6-3. Soderling won the next three in close fashion, 7-5, 6-4, 6-4.
Grigor Dmitrov did his best to beat Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. He is still trying to have a key breakout game. Dmitrov took the first set in a tiebreak. Tsonga took sets 2 and 3. Although Dmitrov was up and ready to serve for the fourth set, Tsonga came back. They played a close tiebreak with Dmitrov saving a match point with a very long rally. Dmitrov tried attacking the net to get ahead, but Tsonga hit a good lob and Dmitrov showed that while he is called Baby Federer, he doesn’t hit the tweener like Federer and netted the tweener. Tsonga won the tiebreak.
del Potro came back to win his match over Rochus in 4 sets. Baghdatis completed his match in straight sets over Seppi. Isner had hoped that playing fresher would help him play Almagro tough, but he could not get a break point on Almagro all match. Almagro won two tiebreaks while Isner won one. Then, Almagro got a break. As Almagro served for the set, he got down 0-30, but then hit four big serves and won the match 6-3 in the fourth set.
Roger Federer had a pretty straightforward win over Adrian Mannarino. While trying to serve out the second set, Federer got behind 0-40, but worked his way out of that game and then ran away with the third set.
Two matches were called due to darkness. Ryan Harrison was up 2 sets to 1 over David Ferrer, but Ferrer is up a break in the fourth set. Like Dmitrov, Harrison is looking for a top ten win, to get him up to that next level. He appears to have beefed up his forehand. Ferrer will make him work, though. Bernard Tomic managed to win the third over steady Igor Andreev. Andreev took the first two sets. That match will be completed tomorrow.
Tomorrow, Roddick will play a big server in Feliciano Lopez. Murray plays veteran Ivan Ljubicic in his first tough match of the tournament. Murray will want to move Ljubicic around who is hard hitting but not that fast. Nadal plays one of the few guys that has beaten him at Wimbledon, Gilles Muller, but that was 2005. Muller hasn’t really gone anywhere in his career. It would be a humongous upset if Muller would win, and more likely that Nadal will win quickly over the player from Luxembourg.
