After a first round defeat at Eastbourne saw him almost drop back out of the top 200, Englands number 1 was outclassed at Wimbledon by Michael Llodra, losing in straight sets. However, the 10 points gained mean he could shoot up to somewhere around the top 180 next week. As we all agree, a staggering achievement for a country of Englands size and tennis heritage. And hey, Ward just earned £11,500 he would not have received had he been born anywhere else in the world.
Mahut v Isner isn't all that exciting
Everybody got all excited when they heard Isner and Mahut had been drawn together again. As if another 70-68 set was absolutely guaranteed to happen. It quickly became clear that actually the match between the world number 47 and 94 wasn't actually all that exciting. Sure we tolerated it as they set astonishing endurance records, but at 4-4 in the first set second time around it was already fairly dull for all involved. To be fair, a similar match up equivalent would be Granollers v Kubot or Stakhovsky v Kendrick. Nobody wants to watch those matches, unless the only other option is a women's match and therefore we shouldn't expect too much of Mahisner either. The decision to hide them away on Court 3 wasn't all that silly.
One way to guarantee British success
The organisers at Queens started this cunning idea of having Brits play each other in the first round, and were rewarded when James Ward beat one of the inept Dans that clog up the 200-300s in the world (Cox I think, but I am not convinced him and Dan Evans aren't just the same person), thus having GB in the astonishing position of having two men in the second round of an ATP event.
The women, to be fair, are slightly better and having two reach the second round wouldn't be that surprising. Still, just to be sure, Broady was drawn against Keothovang. Given how British women love to implode from comfortable winning positions, I was quite intrigued to see if this match could be completed before the universe collapsed through the sheer complexity of having both players bottle one match. In the end, Keothovang prevailed and joined Baltacha in the second round. Both did so without too much fuss, bar the typical serving the match out jitters. Both will lose the next round.
Centre Court tickets not all that worthwhile
Not great value in centre court tickets the last two days. Andy Murray tried to inject some excitement by dropping the first set, but in general the top 4 had an absolute stroll in the first round. Federer dropped 12 points on serve all match, ensuring my prediction that Kukushkin wouldn't win Wimbledon proved correct. Djokovic then dropped 11 points on serve all match as he dispatched with Chardy. Nadal thought about giving Russell the first set, but obviously worked out there was something on TV he had to get back for and fought back for a straightforward victory too.
Plus, you also have to watch some women's matches.
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