2010 Wimbledon Coverage

Day Four Thoughts

--- see all matches played today here ---

--- get ready for tomorrow's matches here ---

DRAWS

• LADIES' SINGLES
• GENTLEMEN'S SINGLES
• LADIES' DOUBLES
• GENTLEMEN'S DOUBLES

So we finally saw the conclusion of Isner-Mahut, another hour-plus required today after three on Tuesday and seven yesterday. The two men battled to longest battle of tennis attrition ever inflicted on two players in a match. Eleven hours in elapsed time and over forty-eight hours since it had begun, #23 John Isner managed to eliminate Nicolas Mahut from the tournament. It was a tough loss for Mahut, the wily Frenchman who had hung in there through 183 games against one of the tallest players on the ATP Tour. But there was no need for hanging one's head in defeat, as both men were impressive in their display of raw endurance and determination. When Isner, 138 games into the fifth set, finally earned what was just his second service break of the three-day-long match, it culminated a historic performance and a storyline to tell the grandchildren (or, in the case for which my fingers are crossed, the children of my nieces and nephews). Isner would prevail by the ludicrous scoreline of 6-4 3-6 6-7(7) 7-6(3) 70-68, that final frame rendering cyberspace covered in the drool of reporters looking to draw off the mystical power that such a rare occurrence will provide.

So that's about all I'm going to write on the subject, what I had to say yesterday on the issue and the preceding paragraph. There has been so much action that has been dwarfed by this freakish storyline that it is time to catch up on what everyone else was doing at the All-England Club. Because, after all, while Isner and Mahut kept even the casual sports fan mesmerized with their sheer test of will, there was plenty of other equally-impressive (and in many respects, more impressive in terms of athletic exploits -- Isner and Mahut, by the end, were just swatting most balls from the baseline and watching each other's serves pass by with amazing frequency) matches being contested all across the venerable grounds...

Take, for instance, the saga of Daniel Nestor and Nenad Zimonjic, the top seed in the men's -- er, gentlemen's -- doubles bracket. The Canadian and the Serb seemed intent on staging their own four-man version of Isner-Mahut for a while there with the British pair of Jonathan Marray and Jamie Murray.  Nestor and Zimonjic won the first set 6-3, looking as though they were going to make short work of the match. But then Murray and Marray extended the second set to a tiebreak, winning 7-2 to put things square at a set apiece. The third and fourth sets also went to tiebreaks, things looking more even than ever now. The favorites won the third set in the tiebreak 8-6, with the underdogs rallying to force a fifth with another spirited 7-2 rally. So it would all come down to a final set... and just like in the singles bracket at Wimbledon, there is no tiebreak in a deciding set. So game after game passed by before Nestor and Zimonjic, as befitting their status as two-time defending Wimbledon champs, found a way to break the Scot and the Englishman to win the gutsy performance 15-13 in the fifth. It wasn't quite as long as the three-day carnival ride, but it was plenty taxing for a team most expected to coast through the early stages of the tournament.

It would have been an upset to throw the bracket into disarray on this doubles-heavy day at Wimbledon. As it was, the only match to go against the seeding was the win by Igor Zelenay and Philipp Marx over the #13 pair of Mardy Fish and Mark Knowles in yet another five-set thriller. The rest of the seeds playing today -- the second-ranked Bryan brothers, Bob and Mike, playing immediately after their compatriot Isner mercifully ended the marathon on a still-buzzing Court 18; #4 Mahesh Bhupathi and Max Mirnyi; #7 Wesley Moodie and Dick Norman; #8 Julian Knowle and Andy Ram; #9 Frantisek Cermak and Michal Mertinak; #10 Simon Aspelin and Paul Hanley; #14 Julien Benneteau and Michael Llodra; and #15 Marcelo Melo and Bruno Soares -- all survived through with varying levels of ease. Though in the end, none were pushed nearly as hard as the top dogs, the men everyone will be gunning for over the next few weeks until they either win a third straight title together or fall by the side of the bracket along the way...

On the women's side, French Open finalist Samantha Stosur might be out of the singles bracket after just one round, but along with partner Nadia Petrova they still constitute the third-seeded ladies duo in the field. They opened their quest for grass-court glory against Americans Melanie Oudin and Riza Zalameda. They would suffer none of the jitters which seemed to envelop the Serb and the Serb-Canadian on the men's side. The first set was a little tight, Stosur and Petrova taking the tiebreak 7-5, but then they opened the throttle and laid down a bagel set 6-0 to sweep the Yanks off the court. It was a superb cat-and-mouse display which showed they might be on good form in the bracket.

We also saw Liezel Huber -- a two-time winner of ladies' doubles at Wimbledon playing with Fed Cup partner Bethanie Mattek-Sands rather than longtime partner Cara Black -- begin her quest to succeed with her compatriot in a new phase for her doubles career. They came in ranked #5 in the draw, thanks largely to their Fed Cup success together, and matched up against fellow American Raquel Kops-Jones and her British partner Sarah Borwell. After shaking off the rust and handing the underdogs the first set 7-1 in a tiebreak, Huber and Mattek-Sands got down to business. They took the next two sets with a flurry of doubles acumen, winning out 6-3 7-5 to move on to see another round.

Huber's former partner, Cara Black, would see her match with new partner Daniela Hantuchova suspended due to darkness with the #11 team tied 2-6 6-2 with their opponents, Maria Kondratieva and Vladimira Uhlirova. It was an uncomfortable position for two women so accustomed to winning, but not insurmountable. Among the other favorites to advance -- #10 Maria Kirilenko and Agnieszka Radwanska; #14 Monica Niculescu and Shahar Peer; #16 Hsieh Su-Wei and Alla Kudryatseva --  only one seeded team faltered. Zheng Jie, who reached the semifinals in the singles draw here two years ago, lost her second round as the #23 seed against Petra Kvitova on Court 17 earlier in the day and then came out onto that Lawn of Horrors yet again later in the afternoon to play her doubles match with her partner Chan Yung-Jan. Seeded #9 in the doubles bracket, the Chinese-Taiwanese duo found themselves overmatched by Akgul Amanmuradova and Kristina Barrois in a match that would finish on a sour 6-4 2-6 6-2 note for the Asian pair...

And yes, there was even singles action for both men and women in addition to the Isner-Mahut thriller. Centre Court saw a trio of second-round matchups. #4 Andy Murray kept his countrymen's flagging hopes of their first domestic singles champion since 1936 alive with his 6-3 6-4 6-2 ouster of Jarkko Nieminen. Following the vanquished Finn and the victorious Scot, #3 Caroline Wozniacki came out and put on her own quick-and-easy 6-4 6-3 advancement against Taipei's Chang Kai-Chen, the ranks of the marquee names steadily rising to the fever pitch of #2 Rafael Nadal's resplendent return to the second round against Robin Haase.

At least, it was supposed to be resplendent. But Haase, a cagey Dutch journeyman, had other ideas. Stealing away the first set 7-5, he forced the Spaniard to work for every point he gained. Nadal would win the second set 6-2 to level things to turn it into a best-of-three match, but Haase jumped right back into the fray and claimed the third set 6-3 to regain the upper hand. It all fell back to Nadal now; after a year away due to tendonitis, the 2008 champion was in a similar position in the second round that his contemporary at the top of the sport, Roger Federer, found himself in the first round -- his imminent ouster being threatened, just like Nestor and Zimonjic had stared down earlier in the afternoon.

He proved up to the task, sweeping the fourth set 6-0 to set up the showdown fifth. There would be no record-challenging rally this time around... the man from Mallorca coolly dispatched of his would-be upsetter 6-3 to advance on to his rightful place amongst the final 32. Joining him in the third round was the man he defeated to reclaim his French Open title in May, #6 Robin Soderling -- as well as other seeds such as #9 David Ferrer, #10 Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, #18 Sam Querrey, #25 Thomaz Bellucci, #26 Gilles Simon, #32 Julien Benneteau, and #33 Philipp Petzschner...

Everything held to form on the men's side, but there were a couple juicy upsets on the women's side that portended some wild things in the days to come as unseeded players continue to make their mark deeper into the tourney. We already mentioned Zheng Jie's ouster. We also had a Czech conquer a Slovak when #24 Daniela Hantuchova fell to Barbara Zahlavova Strycova in a match that seemed to be going all Hantuchova's way... until the second set began and Strycova won 1-6 6-2 6-4. #19 Svetlana Kuznetsova, last year's French Open winner and a three-time Wimbledon quarterfinalist, lost control against Anastasia Rodionova and bombed out 6-4 2-6 6-4. #18 Aravane Rezai, never a strong player on the grass, couldn't get past Klara Zakopalova and bid her adieu in a spirited but futile 5-7 6-3 6-3 departure.

Not all the women favored in the draw faltered, though. #16 Maria Sharapova made short work of Romania's Ioana Raluca Olaru, taking the match 6-4 6-1 and moving on to a date with Strycova -- against whom she will hope to avoid the same fate as Hantuchova. Top-seeded Serena Williams punched her ticket to the next round with a manic 6-0 6-1 demolition of overmatched Anna Chakvetadze, where she will face Slovak Dominika Cibulkova. #31 Alexandra Dulgheru is playing incredibly as well after removing pretender Romina Sarina Oprandi from the bracket with a 6-2 6-0 day at the court; she could easily be a darkhorse for at least the quarterfinals with dates against Stosur-slayer Kaia Kanepi and then, with a win, either #10 Flavia Pennetta or Rezai-router Klara Zakalapova on deck.

There she would face any amongst #3 Wozniacki, #14 Victoria Azarenka (who knocked off Bojana Jovanovski 6-1 6-4 today), #29 Anna Pavlyuchenkova or even unseeded Petra Kvitova -- who as recently as last summer was upsetting Dinara Safina at the U.S. Open. It's been an amazing draw for the women so far, and with the final 32 set it should get hot and heavy from here on out...

It's been an amazing first four days all around at the All-England Lawn Tennis Club. From the marathon that has the wider sports media abuzz to all the upsets and intrigue in between, the tournament continues at its frantic pace. Thankfully, only the vagaries of tiebreaker-free final sets have kept matches on the docket postponed... cross those fingers that we don't have to see the roof retract on Centre Court for anything except to shelter the players from encroaching nightfall...