For the recap of the Day 2 women’s action, click here.
To the surprise of none, Roger Federer breezed through his first-round match against Damir Dzumhur, dropping only seven games. In a slightly more surprising result, Rafael Nadal beat Thomaz Bellucci in straight sets as well. Now, Nadal was certainly a favorite in this match. But in recent years he has struggled in early rounds at Wimbledon. This match was a struggle also, with the Spaniard not anywhere near his best for most of it, but he did more than enough to get through without a real scare. It wasn’t pretty, but it was enough. He’ll have to step things up in his next match, though, when he meets excellent grass-courter Dustin Brown.
Federer and Nadal Advance–Wimbledon 2015 Day 2 Men’s Recap
Who Looked Good:
Dustin Brown (defeated Lu 36 63 75 64): Yen-Hsun Lu is an underratedly good grass court player. Brown, though, hit 61 winners and won 45 net points en route to this 4-set victory. He struggled in the first set but once he found his rhythm in the second set, he really controlled this match. He will face a stiffer challenge against Nadal in the next round, but he has the game and the talent to challenge Nadal on this first-week grass.
Benoit Paire (defeated Youzhny 64 64 63): Paire has been inconsistent and played at a poor level for several years now. Paire was on today, though, spanking winners all over the court and really just outhitting Youzhny. I don’t know if he can keep it up for another match or two, but he deserves props for what he did today.
Gilles Simon (defeated Almagro 64 64 75): Simon has historically not done well on the grass. His record here, including this win, is only 14-9. He played his normal match today, letting his opponent dictate play but defending and counterpunching enough to win against a strong opponent. He stepped up in the big moments and took the points that mattered, which is what wins big matches in the end.
Who Looked Bad:
Denis Istomin (lost to Ramos 26 26 23): Istomin officially required from this match due to illness. We don’t know what is wrong with him and we probably never will, but unless he was severely impeded he really should have done better. Grass is a surface he likes and Ramos hasn’t won a match at a Slam in almost three years.
Jack Sock (lost to Groth 36 63 36 36): Look, playing Groth on grass is never easy. Groth may very well have the biggest serve in all of tennis. But the next great American hope is supposed to do better, especially on grass. Sock never really got into a rhythm and it showed.
Radek Stepanek (lost to Bedene 57 61 64 36 46): Beating a Brit at Wimbledon is never easy. But this was still a difficult performance to watch from the Czech. The normally-aggressive Stepanek was reduced to defending and it showed in both the outcome of the match and the statsheet. Stepanek hit 34 winners and 28 unforced errors. His opponent’s numbers? 60 and 43, respectively. This match stayed on Bedene’s racket and that was the real difference, even if the crowd got a bit of an assist too.
Match of the Day
I’m having difficulty deciding which match to pick for this. Several matches went five sets, though the two standouts are really Tsonga/Muller and Coric/Stakhovsky. The matchups were very similar, though different in very nuanced ways. Muller is a classic grass court player. He has a huge serve and follows it in well. If you keep him back with the return, he has big enough groundstrokes to dominate the rallies. Tsonga, on the other hand, is a classic power hitter. He has a huge serve and huge groundstrokes that he can hit from anywhere. Both of these player’s serve are nearly unbreakable, which is what often leads to classic Wimbledon matches.
Stakhovsky is very similar to Muller in the style of his game, though he is not quite as talented and doesn’t have as much power. Coric plays a little differently than Tsonga, but they are close enough that these matches were relatively analogous.
And the two matches played out in somewhat similar ways. The first two sets of Tsonga/Muller stayed break-free, with the two splitting a pair of tiebreaks. Tsonga earned a decisive break in the third set while Muller earned his lone break of the match in the fourth. The fifth set was not too tense, with Tsonga earning two breaks and running away with it 6-2. Still, it’s a good result for the not-completely-healthy and slumping Frenchman over a good grass player. The match, on the whole, was a very high-quality and entertaining affair.
Coric and Stakhovsky also split the first two sets, though only the second went to a tiebreak. Coric ran away with the third set while Stakhovsky dished out a breadstick in the fourth, and all of a sudden we were on to a marathon set five. In a tense and entertaining set that was nowhere near the level of play of Tsonga/Muller (Coric’s fifth-set stats were 11 winners and 18 errors), break points were hard to come by. No one broke serve until Coric earned and took a match point with Stakhovsky serving down 7-8, much to the young Croatian’s delight. It was his first win in the first Wimbledon appearance for the rising star, though many more are sure to come.
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