Wimbledon 2019

Fair weather, at least for the first few days, beckons at Wimbledon. There's a roof on number one court, which is excellent news for those with tickets for that court and for the organisers if the rain arrives.

Djoko is my favourite for the title followed by Federer. Rafa has a difficult draw but how often have we seen tricky draws work out simply due to the fact that projected opponents fall by the wayside.

Difficult to make a case out for anyone outside the top three having a good run. Last year Anderson and Isner made the semis but have not played much this season. Not sure Tsitsipas or Thiem really have the game for grass.

Predicting a women's champion is far from straightforward. Barty is the new number one and with that terrific BH slice could do extremely well. Kerber looked very good in beating Halep at Eastbourne and Pliskova has a chance, although her Wimbledon record is woeful.

You can never rule out Serena and, as I said before the French, practically all the top players have a chance. Intriguing first-round match between Coco Gauff (aged 15) and Venus (aged 39).

This year sees a tiebreak kick in at 12-12 in the final set. It just remains to be seen just how much talk the BBC come up with before showing any action when they start the programmes. Thank God for the red button.

Mens Singles qualifiers
Dennis Novak (Aut)
Salvatore Caruso (Ita)
Gregoire Barrere (Fra)
Jiri Vesely (Cze)
Corentin Moutet (Fra)
Alexei Popyrin (Aus)
Yasutaka Uchiyama (Jpn)
Ruben Bemelmans (Bel)
Soon-Woo Kwon (Kor)
Yuichi Sugita (Jpn)
Andrea Arnaboldi (Ita)
Kamil Majchrzak (Pol)
Marcel Granollers (Spa)
Thiago Monteiro (Brz)
Noah Rubin (US)
Marcos Giron (US)

Of the 7 British players in the qualifiers 6 lost in the first round.  1 reached the final qualifying round (Liam Broady).

In women's qualifying - of the 7 British players - 5 lost in the first round, 1 lost in the second round (Gabriella Taylor) and 1 lost in the final qualifying round (Samantha Murray).

Order of play for day one at Wimbledon is out. As the BBC virtually selects the order, Edmund is on third so that the BBC can annoy everyone by constantly switching the match between BBC1 and BBC2 in the early evening.

Osaka is on Centre after Djoko, while Halep starts on number one court, with the intriguing Gauff-V Williams match third on number one.

Sooner or later one of the new generation are going to win a grand slam - is it going to be in Wimbledon 2019 - maybe a Tsitsipas?  I can't see Nadal winning Wimbledon - surely he has had to remodel his grass game from the period when he was reaching Wimbledon finals with regularity and winning two of them (2006-2012).  Djokovic I guess has to be the favorite and Federer cannot be completely discounted.

Here is a link to the draws:
https://www.wimbledon.com/en_GB/draws/index.html

Federer would be the oldest player in the Open Era to win a Slam should he take the title.

Interestingly, we had a quiz at my local tennis club and when asked who was the youngest Wimbledon champion I said Lottie Dod, who was only 15 when she won in 1887. Quizmaster said that was wrong and the correct answer was Martina Hingis (16 years of age in 1997). Official ATP/WTA media book has the answer as.....Hingis.  Boo.

Day one of Wimbledon. Djoko has an ideal first match with Kohlschreiber likely to give him a good work out but not really threatening to win.

Will be interesting to see how this young girl Gauff gets on against Venus. Not sure who is the youngest Wimbledon match winner in the Open Era. Capriati? Austin?

According to the BBC Heather Watson's tennis ability has regressed:

BBC CLIP of Heather Watson

Since then Watson has taken the first set in a tie-break and is a break up in the second set 7-6 2-0 (against 17 year old Caty McNally of the USA).

Wawrinka is two sets up against Bemelmans.  Anderson and Bautista Agut are on top in their first round matches.

Fairly quiet day 1 so far - straightforward wins for Djokovic, Wawrinka and Anderson, and Halep came through in 2 tight sets.

However, there's a batch of more competitive tight matches in play now:

Osaka into 1st set tie-break with Putintseva, Tsitsipas at 1 set all and on serve in the 3rd set against Fabbiano, and Zverev now at 1 set all against Vesely.

Tsitsipas, tipped by some pundits as the best bet outside the big three, in trouble at 2 sets to 1 down.

Zverev now 2 sets to 1 down against big serving Czech left-handed Vesely. When I saw that match in the line-up I thought it was a prime candidate for early round 5 set special for Zverev - the German is still young but he does need to learn how to win the early rounds with minimum of fuss - 'winning ugly' when required - the top 4 have been so good at that over the years.

Regarding Tsitisipas I was interested to see SFP's comment at top of thread about him not having the game for grass. From what I've seen of the young Greek he does have the movement and volleying skills to do well on grass, but even if he gets through this match I don't see him repeating his Aus Open heroics at Wimbledon based on this performance.

Alexander Zverev is playing qualifier Jiri Vesely - however Vesely's record at Wimbledon is comparable to Zverev's record.  Last year Vesely was knocked out in the 4R and Zverev was knocked out in the 3R.  Currently Vesely is ahead two sets to one.

Thomas Fabbiano aged 30 has spent most of his career as a challenger level player.  Since June 2017 his ranking has fluctuated in the 120 to 80 region.  His best results in a grand slam have been reaching the third round (US Open 2017, Wimbledon 2018 and AO 2019).

I saw Vesely a few years ago - was impressed with his game - monstrous lefty serve and powerful groundstrokes, and for a tall guy gets down low well - however, I think he has underachieved in his game - maybe lacks that bit of fire and mental toughness in him at times. Tsitsipas still hanging on, for now, into 4th set tie-break with Fabbiano.

Naomi Osaka's best result at Wimbledon have been third round in 2017 and 2018. Here she loses 7-6 6-2 in the first round to Yulia Putintseva whose best results at Wimbledon have been reaching the second round.

I wonder what match is going to be the first to have the final set 12-12 tie break.

ps I assume none of the wimbledon qualifiers went to a fifth set tie break.  pps Doesn't seem to be the case.

One of the features characterising Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray was that shortly after appearing on the scene they went through a massive acceleration up the rankings into the top ten and top four, and then it was their consistency of getting to the quarter finals and higher in the grand slams - and doing this without injury or at least major career altering injury.  

Del Potro followed the same sort of trajectory but had a career altering injury very early on.  There has been nobody yet who looked like doing this.  Stan the Man Wawrinka was a late bloomer on the scene.  I thought maybe Tsitsipas (still young) and now there is Felix A-A (only 18 so we shall see).

A Zverev loses in four sets to Vesely and Tsitsipas loses to Fabbiano in five sets.

ps Lopez and Raonic through in straight sets.

Dimitrov

Didn't think either Zverev or Tsitsipas were going to win Wimbledon but didn't expect both to go out in the first round. Terrific win by Gauff. She has a big game for a 15 year old.

Now if Edmund can just get past Verdasco in the next round he could go a long way. Stan the Man looked good yesterday and he could be a threat.

Bottom half of the men's draw is played today. Doubt there will be quite the shocks there were on Monday. I saw that Osaka wanted to leave her press conference as she was going to cry. At least Gauff's tears were for the right reason.

Very interesting first day at Wimbledon. Gauff beating Venus was a massive shock. Match of the day for me was the Tsitsipas V Fabbiano match. Great rallies, great winners and very tight match - highly enjoyed watching this one and Fabbiano played out of his skin and seems well-suited to grass. The Zverev result was a shock but to be fair I have never been overly impressed or convinced Zverev has what it takes in various departments to become a slam winner. Edmund was competent if unspectacular but winning in straights is the main thing. A good confidence boosting win for Heather Watson and Novak off to a decent start in defending his crown. Osaka just never looked like she settled. A number of her shots she looked as tight as a drum.

Thiem vs Querrey is an interesting match up for today.

Recent Wimbledon Performances suggests Querrey is the favorite:
......... Thiem .......... Querrey
2018 ... 1R ............... 3R
2017 ... 4R ............... SF
2016 ... 2R ............... QF
2015 ... 2R ............... 2R

Both Dan Evans and James Ward take the first two sets against Delbonis and Basilashvili respectively.

Greetings all. Old LK dropping in. I hope you are all well and hope you enjoy the tennis. Will make more of an effort to get debate going on here again

Kyrgios and Thompson is entertaining, for mostly the wrong reasons. Kyrgios behaving bizarrely while being about half-fit - worked so hard to win the third set through a marathon tie-break, and is now throwing away the fourth set very hastily.

Thiem vs Querrey currently 7-6 6-7 3-3 with no breaks in serve. Thiem has had five breakpoints and Querrey has had no break points. If this goes to a fifth set we could have our first ever Wimbledon fifth set tie-breaker.

LKII wrote:Greetings all. Old LK dropping in. I hope you are all well and hope you enjoy the tennis. Will make more of an effort to get debate going on here again

Took me 57 minutes to remember what LK stood for!

Thiem has now had 6 breakpoints and failed to convert any. Querrey has had 2 breakpoints and converted them both. Querrey currently leads 6-7 7-6 6-3 2-0.

Legend has it this forum used to be filled with young tennis enthusiasts in a hubbubery of discursive intercourse but in time the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune killed it off slowly like a doddery elbow of Djokovic, a hobbled hip of Murray, a kranky kneecap of Nadal and an arthritic fossilisation of Federer

Querrey wins 6-7 7-6 6-3 6-0.  There seems to have been some sort of system failure with Thiem. There had been no break of serve until 6-7 7-6 3-3 then Thiem lost every single game following that (nine games in a row).

South African youngster Lloyd Harris takes the first set against 8 times champion Roger Federer 6/3

Somebody has mentioned that something to watch out for now with Federer is his breakpoint conversion rate which has been poor recently.  The current score of the Federer vs Harris match is 3-6 4-1, with Federer converting one of four breakpoint opportunities and Harris converting one of one breakpoint opportunities.  Surprised that Federer dropped the first set but I guess we have to assume a bit of early tournament cobwebs on Federer's part then him getting in his stride and taking the next three sets.

Federer wins the second set 6/1. A lot more slices and coming to net by the Swiss. The South African seems confused as to what to do when the Swiss covers the net

What on earth happened to Thiem? Whilst I was expecting Querrey to beat him, I didn't anticipate such a dramatic collapse.

A good day for the Brits so far - v impressive wins for Evans and Norrie - the latter has had a few poor results this year so I'm glad to see him doing well on what isn't necessarily his best surface. Evans is a decent grasscourter - has good slice, and is v competent at the net. Konta closing on victory but Swan and Ward lost.

Good win for Tsonga over Tomic - JWT can go far this year. Anyone reckon Mannarino could beat an out-of-sorts Cilic later today?

After the bad losses for Tsitsipas and Zverev yesterday it was good to see De Minaur come through - Shapovalov also in action.

Tiafoe v Fognini looks great match - if I was in Wimbledon on a ground pass today I'd definitely be heading for that one.

Muguruza out in straight sets. What's happened to her? When she won at Wimbledon the 1st time I thought she had the sustained power game to dominate at the top but she's fallen way down the rankings. Got a feeling we may end up with a 1st time finalist in the womens' singles this year.

MrInvisible wrote:Muguruza out in straight sets.  What's happened to her?  When she won at Wimbledon the 1st time I thought she had the sustained power game to dominate at the top but she's fallen way down the rankings.  Got a feeling we may end up with a 1st time finalist in the womens' singles this year.

Seems to be a pretty good bet for every Slam at the moment. So little consistency from the players near the top of the womens game

Another faded talent of the WTA, Bouchard, also gone in R1...

After that early scare, Fed was in cruise control and trying out all sorts of things. Not sure he'd dropped a set in his opening round at Wimbledon since the famous Falla match in 2010.

Muguruza very disappointing as was the Thiem result. Britain's Clarke has won and will now play....Federer. Good to see Baggy getting a win in what will be his final tournament.

JuliusHMarx wrote:

LKII wrote:Greetings all. Old LK dropping in. I hope you are all well and hope you enjoy the tennis. Will make more of an effort to get debate going on here again

Took me 57 minutes to remember what LK stood for!

I like the precision of that timing

Good to see the section is chugging along

Berdych loses in straight sets to Taylor Fritz 4-6 4-6 3-6. Aged 33 and with recent injury problems Berdych might be soon considering retirement.

There doesn't appear to be any injury reports to account for Thiem's sudden collapse against Querrey from 7-6 6-7 3-3 to 7-6 6-7 3-6 0-6. It just seems Thiem wilted in the face of Querrey's consistently better grass court game. But I am not 100% certain I buy that explanation.

Another of the young hopefuls, Shapovalov, has bitten the dust. So much for the next generation!

Thiem going out in straights was a surprise and disappeared in the third set so maybe he had a niggling injury. Federer through after a momentary scare. A relative straight forward win for Rafa after a sticky start. A good day for the Brits with wins for Evans, Norrie, Konta, Dart and Jay Clarke. Jaoa Sousa looks like he'll have a bit too much court craft for young Brit Paul Jubb. Sousa currently leads 6-0 6-3 4-4.

18 year old Felix A-A is through to the second round. However he played Pospisil in the first round who has been knocked out in the first round at Wimbledon in 2012, 2014, 2016, 2017, 2018 and now 2019. There are a few young hopefuls and mid-twenties players around to make it "interesting".

No name Bertie wrote:Berdych loses in straight sets to Taylor Fritz 4-6 4-6 3-6.  Aged 33 and with recent injury problems Berdych might be soon considering retirement.

Straight sets for Taylor. Swift.

James Ward put up a good effort against 18th seed Basilashvili. losing 8-6 in the fifth set.

Brits In the second round we have:
Dan Evans vs Basiliashvili (18th seed)
Cameron Norrie vs Nishikori (8th seed)
Jay Clarke vs Federer (2nd seed)
Kyle Edmund vs Verdasco (not an easy match for Edmund)

Harriet Dart vs Beatriz Haddad Maia
Johanna Konta vs Katerina Siniakova
Heather Watson vs Anett Kontaveit (20th seed)

Jubb finally went down 6-1 in the fourth but only after a terrific third set where he came out on top in a thrilling tiebreak in which he saved two MPs.

Before his 4th set collapse Jubb showed enough to suggest he could perform well on the main tour. He has good movement and good court craft.

Some tough opponents for the Britons left in, including Verdasco who may well upset Edmund (I hope not).

sirfredperry wrote:Interestingly, we had a quiz at my local tennis club and when asked who was the youngest Wimbledon champion I said Lottie Dod, who was only 15 when she won in 1887. Quizmaster said that was wrong and the correct answer was Martina Hingis (16 years of age in 1997). Official ATP/WTA media book has the answer as.....Hingis.  Boo.

Open Era begins in 1973, by the Quizmaster's definition. (but I prefer your answer!).

LKII wrote:Greetings all. Old LK dropping in. I hope you are all well and hope you enjoy the tennis.

Good to see ya, LK!

LKII wrote:Will make more of an effort to get debate going on here again

As long as the tired GOAT and PEDs are destined for the trash can, it would be good to have more civilized discussions.

JuliusHMarx wrote:Straight sets for Taylor. Swift.

Do not like her much.

Second round matches today. I wonder if Coco Gauff will be able to keep it up. She has had to deal with a lot of attention over the last two days and she may well come up short today.

The Verdasco match is going to be tricky for Edmund. Heather Watson has been in awful form this season but for some reason I think she could win today.

sirfredperry wrote:Jubb finally went down 6-1 in the fourth but only after a terrific third set where he came out on top in a thrilling tiebreak in which he saved two MPs.

Before his 4th set collapse Jubb showed enough to suggest he could perform well on the main tour. He has good movement and good court craft.

Some tough opponents for the Britons left in, including Verdasco who may well upset Edmund (I hope not).

Saw a little of Jubb's match. Interesting that he is said to have modelled his game on Djokovic, as there were definitely some similarities. Looks like he has a bit of physical growth still to do, in the sense of filling out a bit, which should give him a bit more weight of shot. Looked to have some promise but that the wild card probably came a year too early.

Generally quite a good showing from the Brits, with a couple of the wild card players going through to round 2. Be interesting to see how far Dan Evans can get - been in terrific form on the grass and we know he's always been better the bigger the tournament.

Anyone care to explain to me what Kyrgios’ issue is with Nadal? Seems odd to me that the Aussie wants to play mind games with a player whom often achieves more in one season than the Aussie has in his entire career