
Wimbledon mid-term gradesHyphens are hot, grass surface is not in wet Week 1Posted: Saturday June 30, 2007 1:33PM; Updated: Saturday June 30, 2007 2:15PM
In this hyper-commercialized age, let's acknowledge just how aberrational it is for a sporting event to forego play on a Sunday. As rain continued Saturday, it looks as though play won't resume here until Monday. Herewith, our marks from the first week at Wimbledon. ARolling seeds: Few significant upsets on either side. Even the upsets haven't been upsets. Laura Granville: American veteran scored one of the bigger scalps of Week One, taking down a hobbling Martina Hingis to reach the fourth round. Nicolas Kiefer: Former top tenner is back from wrist trouble, reaching round three. Janko Tipsarevic: The only top 100 player with not only an array of tats but a pierced eyebrow takes down Fernando Gonzalez to reach round four. It's about time a Serbian player made some noise. Hyphenated French comers: Paul-Henri Mathieu, Edouard Roger-Vasselin and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga all turn in strong showings. Sam Qureshi: Pakistani qualifies, wins his first match and plays competitively against Marat Safin. BTim Henman: Pity he couldn't have won a winnable showdown against Feliciano Lopez, but his thriller against Carlos Moya was the match of Week One. Donald Young: Nice to see him at Wimbledon, but it's surprising he'd enter the juniors draw. Rain: "The referee has made changes to the SHED-duel" was the soundtrack of week one. The roof can't come soon enough. But the schedule hasn't been especially messed up by all the sporadic showers. CThe grass: Playing like a fast hard court. As we lament the death of serve-and-volley some culpability goes to the groundskeepers. Anastasia Pavlyuchenko: Goddess of the juniors gets waxed by Daniela Hantuchova in round one. Wild cards: Only two of the 16 players accorded a free pass advanced to round two. James Blake: We realize that streaky tennis is his stock in trade, but this year is really getting away from him. He simply can't lose to the likes of JC-Ferrero on grass if he has designs of returning to top five form.
| |||||||||||||||