The second day at Wimbledon featured the 1st round match-ups for players in the bottom half of the draw.
The bounce of the ball has been quite high at SW19 but perhaps that might not be the only scenery worthy of note as there seems to have been an installation of the installed high-speed rail as Seppi, Federer, Alexandr Dolgopolov, Kvitova, Kerber and a host of others raced through their openers.
Defending champion, Petra Kvitova continued from where she left off on Centre Court, breezing past the challenge of Kiki Bertens in 35 minutes. Angelique Kerber played a perfect match against Carina Witthoeft without losing a game. Another fast one was the victory of Agnieszka Radwanska over Lucie Hradecka.
Following the high profile loss of Carla Suarez Navarro on Monday, it was to be seen whether the upsets were ready to roll in at the All England Club. The big upsets came to town in the women’s draw Tuesday as one-time Slam finalists Simona Halep and Eugenie Bouchard blew their hopes of making their major breakthrough at SW19.
Simona Halep lost in three sets to “lowly” Jana Cepelova while last year finalist fell after a dismal performance to a largely unknown Ying-Ying Daun.
Elsewhere, there were wins for Caroline Wozniacki, Ekaterina Makarova, Alize Cornet, Sabine Lisicki, Heather Watson, Timea Bacsinszky, Garbine Muguruza, Casey Dellacqua, Monica Niculescu, Svetlana Kuznetsova, Silvia Soler, Denisa Allertova and Camila Giorgi among a few others.
In the men’s draw, Roger Federer needed 68 minutes as he made a perfect start to his quest for an unprecedented 8th Wimbledon title. The second seeded Swiss recorded a 6-1 6-3 6-3 win over Damir Dzumhur.
Home favourite, Andy Murray had no troubles as he won in straight sets to see off the threat of Mikhail Kukushkin while two-time winner, Rafael Nadal was in great form as he dispatched Thomaz Bellucci in straight sets. Alexandr Dolgopolov had little time to spare, racing into the second round with a 7-6 6-1 6-2 win over Kyle Edmund. The likes of Roberto Baustista, Andreas Seppi, Benoit Paire, Fabio Fognini, Gilles Simon and Jiri Vesely also recorded comfortable straight sets wins.
Tomas Berdych booked a second round pass seeing off Jeremy Chardy in fourth sets, coping with the darkness whie Jo-Wilfred Tsonga also needed four sets to overcome Gilles Muller.
Borna Coric registered his first win at Wimbledon after seeing off Sergiy Stakovsky in five sets.
There were wins as well for Ivo Karlovic, Samuel Groth, James Duckworth, Albert Ramos, Gael Monfils, James Ward, Feliciano Lopez, Viktor Triocki, Vasek Pospisil, Dustin Brown and a few others.
American Jack Sock was the biggest casualty in the men’s draw; losing out to Samuel Groth.
2nd round action in the top half of each draw is slated for Wednesday, 1st July, 2015. Enjoy!
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