Williams d. Amanmuradova 6-3 6-1
I won’t pretend I don’t have an opinion on it, but lets just say I’ve made my peace with the dress. I almost don’t care what she’s wearing, provided she makes the second week.
As intimidating as she was today – 23 winners, 7 aces and just 5 UFEs – I can’t help thinking back on how thoroughly she butchered Ana in Eastbourne less than a week ago, before going down to Dani on the back of some pretty shoddy play only 24 hours later.
The worst bit is I’ve seen it happen before that too. And not following a 6 month outage either. Kimiko next.
Oh wait, this was meant to be a positive post.
Murray d. Gimeno-Traver 4-6 6-3 6-0 6-0
Ok look, I’m glad he dug himself out of trouble, and I’m even glad he gave the crowd and assembled Brit press something to get hormonal about.
But that scoreline says less about his play than it does about Gimeno-Traver throwing in the towel, which he did somewhere towards the end of the 2nd set.
Schiavone d. Dokic 6-4 1-6 6-3
Fran got through this but it wasn’t easy. And I’m glad it wasn’t. It gave Cesca the tune-up she needed, and, well, its always a pleasure to see Jelena put up a fight and play to her capabilities.
The match had to be stopped for rain – which meant waiting the customary 40 minutes as the roof was shut and the aircon and humidity were got just right. When it reconvened, it did so in a peculiar atmosphere of tinted refrigerator lighting and indoor-echo. Whatever this was, it wasn’t grass court tennis – and that’s before you even consider the very many players that consider the grass (both here and at Queens) to be actually playing slower than the clay of RG. Ljubicic’s words (amongst others) not mine.
One more thing. At some point we’re gonna need to stop treating Jelena like Mother Theresa every time she plays, what is after all, just a tennis match.
I sympathise with her as much as anyone else, but not only is this ‘saintliness’ a gross caricature, it’s downright patronising, and I daresay she’d prefer actual support over such clumsy “sympathy”.
