From Medvedev’s bizarre behavior to wins by Murray, Nadal, Cilic, Nishikori, Tsonga, Querey, Muller, and Janowicz
Cilic is rarely noticed in the first week of slams. However, he does his job and gradually moves up to cause his share of upsets in the 2nd week. He beat a quality grass court opponent in Florian Mayer in a tight three setter on day 3 at Wimbledon. He clocked 31 aces whereas Mayer had none. Cilic landed 59% of his first serves and won 95% of them. He also hit 66 winners to Mayer’s 20 and won 123 total points as Compared to 92 by Mayer. Cilic lost in an extremely tight contest to Roger in quarters last year and he will be super dangerous if he reaches the 2nd week at Wimbledon this year again. He plays 26th ranked Steve Johnson next and probably Nishikori thereafter, if Nishikori is able to get past Bautista Agut.
Nishikori had a close 4 set encounter with Stakhovsky and two of those sets went into tie breaks and in Nishikori’s favor. Stakhovsky’s net rushing style can disrupt anyone’s rhythm and he is no slouch from the baseline either. His serve, backhand and forehand are all decent enough to create enough opportunities for him to move forward to the net where he seems quite comfortable. However, in this match, Nishikori approached the net 43 times winning 25 of those points as compared to 22 of 41 net approaches won by Stakhovsky!
After winning his 10th French Open, Nadal seems to be hungry for more. He beat Donald Young 6-4, 6-2, 7-5 in a fairly routine 2nd round match by maintaining 80% first serve and 60% second serve win percentages. Nadal also seems to be working on approaching the net more and won 79% of his 34 sojourns to the net against Young. He will face 30th ranked Khachanov next and it’d be silly to bet against Nadal in that match too.
The match between Rosol and Muller was indeed a barn burner which was won by Muller 9-7 in the fifth. Gilles fired 45 aces to Rosol’s 25, had 87% first serve win percentage to Rosol’s 78% and won 34 of his 44 visits to the net. Both gave themselves ample break opportunities but Muller converted 4 of his 14 whereas Rosol managed to convert only 2 of his 13. Muller also hit 95 winners to Rosol’s 74, and their unforced error count was kept surprisingly low at 37 by Muller and 35 by Rosol. Muller has been having a great grass court season so far and this match should make him feel better about his prospects while moving ahead in the draw.
After beating Wawrinka we expected more from Daniil Medvedev but he lost his next match to Bemelmans in a five setter. At the end of the match Daniil for some bizarre reason decided to take out a few coins from his wallet and toss them towards the chair umpire. Apparently he was upset about a wrong call which went against him in the 5th set and wanted to lighten his wallet because of it! Bemelmans will get to play Kevin Anderson who like Cilic has been moving slowly yet steadily through the draw. Anderson had a close 4 setter against Verdasco in the first round but took care of Seppi in a routine 6-3, 7-6, 6-3 win in the 2nd and, on paper at least, is the favorite to win the next round.
Elsewhere, Tsonga and Sam Querey have set themselves up a date by winning their second rounds. Tsonga had a routine 3 setter against Bolleli but Querey had to comeback after losing the first set 4-6 to Basilashvili.
It seems Lucas Pouille needs some more work on his game as he went down 7-6, 7-6, 3-6, 6-1 to Jerri Janowicz. Janowicz is always dangerous on faster surfaces and it is not surprising that he got the better of Pouille here. He faces Benoit Paire in the next round and that match should provide for some decent entertainment too.
Fognini has been taking care of business so far and beat Vesely 7-6, 6-4, 6-2 in the second round to set up his match with Andy Murray who, on his part, made easy of Dustin Brown with a 6-3, 6-2, 6-2 win on the center court. Brown’s reactionary game in contrast to Murray’s thoughtful and planned style had quite a few of its wow moments but Brown was just not steady or powerful enough to dent Murray’s defense shield. Fognini is a different caliber player but we expect Murray to get past Fognini is straight or 4 sets.
It was an interesting day for men’s tennis at Wimbledon, and our hope for Day 4 would be to get to see Roger and Novak complete their matches.