As opposed to the French Open, three members of the big four is in the bottom half at Wimbledon. But luckily for Federer he doesn’t have Nadal in his quarter the way Djokovic had at the French. Since Nadal is in Murray’s quarter Federer will at most only have to deal with one of them. Today was the turn of the bottom half which means all of Federer, Murray, and Nadal were in action and all of them won in straight sets. I didn’t catch much of the action but caught up some on the highlights.
Nadal vs Bellucci
I watched only the first set of Bellucci against Nadal and I made a big mistake to think that Bellucci could trouble Nadal. Nadal ended up winning our prediction match 6-4, 6-2, 6-4. What I saw from Bellucci was truly pathetic. Nadal was still looking vulnerable, but Bellucci was playing on grass like it was a clay court, basically just pushing and waiting for Nadal to end the point. After watching some of Nadal’s match, I feel a lot less certain that he can make the semi-finals.
It’s hot out there…
I dare say Federer is safe, but of course with Nadal you never know. Nadal plays Brown next who will at least be a much better player than the clueless Bellucci. Brown has already beaten Nadal on grass and you can be sure he will play much more attacking tennis than the dirt baller Bellucci. I haven’t seen much of him, but I think grass suits his game well and he actually has a good shot at upsetting Nadal. This will probably be Nadal’s biggest test before the quarterfinals.
If he survives it he may we make the second week and turn into a different animal.
Federer played Dzumhur at the French Open as well and he is just a weaponless player and is therefore even less of a threat on grass, so Federer won 6-1, 6-3, 6-3. Federer looked pretty calm and confident as opposed to Nadal though. But you’d expect that given his form this year and the fact that he won Halle. It’s good early signs for Federer but too early to draw any serious conclusions. Next he will play Querrey who made the final in Nottingham so that will be a better test.
Jammies?
At least Querrey has a decent grass court game, but he will probably lose in straight sets. I just think we will get a better idea of what goes on with Fedal after their respective second round matches have been played. First rounds are always just an adjustment basically.
Like I said Murray also won against Kukushkin, 6-4, 7-6(3), 6-4. Then a match which was expected to be close between Tsonga and Muller went to five sets with Tsonga winning 6-2 in the fifth. I can see Tsonga making the fourth round and play Murray unless he loses to Karlovic or even Dolgopolov who both won today as well. Tsonga is a dangerous grass courter who comes off a semi-final in Paris. Murray sure got a tough draw, like Djokovic did in Paris almost.
Ok, now the fun part. Congrats to Tom who won today’s game after predicting Nadal would win 6-3, 6-2, 6-3. Not very far from a perfect prediction at all! Joe takes over the #1 spot for himself after coming second today with another close prediction of 7-5, 6-4, 6-4. Josefina also made another good prediction and finds herself alone in the second spot after the second round of predictions. I would suggest that if you want to stay at the top then leave your prediction to the last minute.
Baby Djoker defeated Satkhovshy 9-7 in the 5th today
Or else people will just copy your score and I don’t want that anyway. But it’s your game so do as you like! Tomorrow is, of course, the turn of the top half again and I don’t see many interesting matchups aside from Djokovic vs Nieminen, Thiem vs Verdasco, and Dimitrov vs Johnson perhaps. I expect another straight set win for Djokovic with a similar scoreline as the one against Kohlschreiber so I’m gonna go for Thiem vs Verdasco. Grass is Thiem’s worst surface, but he had a decent win in the first round.
Verdasco, on the other hand, had a marathon against Klizan winning 13-11 in the fifth. So maybe Thiem can make a match of it and I want to see if there are any of you who has the courage to predict a victory for him. I have updated the rankings which you can view on the predictions page on the top bar and you can make your predictions below this post again. The two have never met before so you will have nothing to rely on but your tennis knowledge and sixth sense!
Good luck!
The
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