Wimbledon Round 1 Recap 🌿 Defending Champion Out, All The Comebacks

Djokovic's knee looking good... Is 6 an unlucky number?

Jul 03, 2024

Wimbledon’s first round saw (at least) 9 seeds bow out of the tournament; but the very top seeds had a strong start to the tournament. Swiatek did not let Kenin into the match. Rybakina won 11 of 12 final games. Alcaraz wasn’t too fazed by his opponent’s swagger. But Djokovic’s knee was where most eyes were at; and it looked more than fine in a match where it wasn't put to a very big test.

RESULTS SUMMARY

TOP 4 SEEDS

Swiatek (1) d. Kenin - 63 64
Gauff (2) d. Dolehide - 61 62
Sabalenka (3) withdrew from the tournament due to a shoulder injury
Rybakina (4) d. Ruse (Q) - 63 61

Sinner (1) d. Hanfmann - 63 64 36 63
Djokovic (2) d. Kopriva - 61 62 62
Alcaraz (3) d. Lajal - 76 75 62
Zverev (4) d. Carballes Baena - 62 64 62

UPSETS (eliminated seeds)

Bouzas Maneiro d. Vondrousova (6) - 64 62
Sun (Q) d. Zheng (8) - 46 62 64
B Fruhvirtova d. M Andreeva (24) - 16 63 62
Kartal (Q) d. Cirstea (29) - 36 62 60

Comesana d. Rublev (6) - 64 57 62 76
Nakashima d. Baez (18) - 62 63 64
Shapovalov d. Jarry (19) - 61 75 64
Mpetschi Perricard (LL) d. Korda (20) - 76 67 76 67 63
Monfils d. Mannarino (22) - 64 36 62 63

Full draws here.

Is 6 an unlucky number?

6th seeded defending champion Marketa Vondrousova is out of Wimbledon at the hands of Jessica Bouzas Maneiro. This is the Spaniard’s 1st win against a top-40 player after 3 losses. She played on grass for the first time in her career last year at Wimbledon when she passed 3 qualifying rounds. She’ll face the winner of Bogdan/Bucsa next.

Marketa Vondrousova is the first defending women’s champion since Steffi Graf (in 1994) to lose in the opening round. Although she said it was all fine, her slipping on the baseline in Berlin (which caused her to withdraw from her quarter final match) might have a lot to do with today’s weak performance.

Men’s 6th seed is also out! Andrey Rublev (6) lost to Francisco Comesana of Argentina in 4 sets. I wanted to check in on this match in the third set and the first thing I saw was a delirious Rublev banging his racquet into his poor knee (this later went semi viral on tennis twitter). Hats off to Comesana who pulled this performance in only his 2nd match on grass ever.

Talking about players already out of the draw… One of the big favorites for the title, Aryna Sabalenka (3), had to withdraw at the last minute due to an ongoing shoulder injury. What a tough season the Belarusian has been having, on and off the court — despite her Australian Open title defense. Wishing her a speedy recovery.

Did Novak Djokovic get a brand new knee?

It sure looked like it. Clinical performance from the 7-time champion as he beat qualifier Vit Kopriva 6-1 6-2 6-2.

He started the match with a 198 km/h ace and that was a sign of things to come. A key part to examine was the way he moved to his forehand, took low backhands and made sudden direction changes (all things linked to his right knee). At first, he seemed cautious, when he often used a forehand slice for balls into which he would normally slide with his right foot. By the start of the second set, he played a point (below) showing he was well comfortable doing his tricks.

He won 90% of his first serves and broke his opponent 6 times. All of this, less than a month after undergoing a knee surgery. That’s Novak Djokovic for you.

Sliding on grass is not for everyone (S Sport Plus)

Wel’come back’ round?

So many comebacks from 2-0 down in sets in the first round. All entertaining matches averaging somewhere around 4 hours in duration. Popcorn stuff!

Bublik (23) d. Mensik - 46 67 64 64 62
Tiafoe (29) d. Arnaldi - 67 26 61 63 63
Thompson d. Kotov - 57 57 64 64 64
Seyboth Wild d. Jubb (WC) - 16 36 76 64 75
Harris (Q) d. Michelsen - 36 46 76 62 76
Safiullin vs. Cerundolo (26) - 67 36 75 63 … to resume on Wednesday

Shout out to Zizou Bergs who also came back from 2-0 down to take it to a decider. He even came back in the deciding tiebreak from 0-7 down to 8-8! But that wasn’t enough.

Cazaux d. Bergs (Q) - 61 64 67 67 76

Never underestimate a qualifier (or a lucky loser)

Qualifying competition at Grand Slam might be where the stakes are highest for tennis players. A player who directly enters the main draw at Wimbledon receives at least £60,000. A qualifier who loses in the first round gets a quarter of that. Leave all the intrinsic motivation like getting a chance to play in the most prestigious tennis tournament out of it, that much financial infusion might make or break the season of a player. That is one of the key reasons the qualifying competition (especially the final round) is home to some of the most dramatic matches a fan can ever see.

Winning 3 of those possibly grueling matches can do a lot for a player’s confidence. After 3 or 4 days of rest, the 32 qualifiers plus the lucky losers now have a chance to showcase with probably much less pressure compared to their opponents: They have already won something by that 1st round match. And we have seen quite a few examples of it these past two days:

Lulu Sun (Q) beat the 8th seed Zheng Qinwen 4-6 6-2 6-4. Zheng does not have much experience on the surface: With her fast rise in rankings coupled with COVID restrictions, she never played qualies at Wimbledon. Sun, on the other hand, had lost in the final round of qualifying last year; that loss doesn’t look so bad in hindsight. She will play fellow qualifier Starodubtseva next.
Mark Lajal (Q) put on a very respectable performance against defending champion Carlos Alcaraz as the difference in the first 2 sets was just one break (that didn’t prevent him from going down 7-6 7-5). Fans who watched Lajal’s qualifying campaign were not surprised by it; but Alcaraz was. He said his opponent’s level was way above his ranking.
World no. 58 Giovanni Mpetschi Perricard (LL) should have gotten a direct entry to Wimbledon anyway; but by the time Wimbledon entry lists were announced, he was only world no. 123. After losing in the final round of qualifying, he made the most against a strong opponent in Sebastian Korda (20). Across 57 service games, there was only *1* break of serve and that went to the Frenchman in the final set. He joins the list of most aces hit in a match ever, with 51 aces.
Sonay Kartal (Q) of Great Britain did not receive a wild card into the main draw. In fact, her ranking dropped so much in the last year that she needed a wild card into qualifying. Well, look who is on a roll now (she had actually been winning quite a few matches, but at lower ITF levels). After a successful qualifying campaign (beating Lamens, Wei and E. Andreeva), she pushed Cirstea (29) out of the tournament, 3-6 6-2 6-0.
Erika Andreeva (LL) must have rushed to the court as she heard Sabalenka’s withdrawal. She made the most of her luck by beating her Bektas 7-6 3-6 6-3.