1st August: Tennis

Federer (Switzerland) vs Istomin (Uzbekistan)

Day 3 (and my second day) dawned to grey skies and humid conditions.  It actually started spitting with rain as we came into the grounds, and remained a little soggy – even as they brought the players out.

Federer actually did look very reluctant as they came out, almost dragging his feet, and almost immediately the rain got heavier and they were taken straight off.

The delay was about 45 minutes and out they came again.

Federer started with a comfortable hold, and broke Istomin in the next game, consolidating with a hold.

Both were taking a bit of time to find their range, and not surprisingly the court was a little bit slippery,

Istomin got to grips with his surroundings, getting himself on the board and then breaking Federer In the next game.

Another Istomin hold got things back on serve until Federer’s serve with the scores at 5-5.  A heavy rain shower suspended play for a short while.

I took advantage of this to go find another friend there for the day and give her a ticket for the Handball we would be seeing on Friday.

Play started back again and Federer started the better, holding and despite taking some time to close it out, got the decisive break and took the first set 7-5.

At the start of the second set, Istomin took another tumble and this time took a bit longer to hobble around.

There were still some inconsistencies on Federer’s forehand and backhand but this set started in exactly the same way as the first, with Federer taking an early lead with an immediate break.

A ball that was stuck into he crowd, was thrown back.  Badly!

It bounced off the heads of the people In the front.

Istomin launched his comeback and there could have been a chance as Federer did not look as convincing as he usually does in early tournament rounds.

But it was shortlived, even with launching his racquet skywards to reach an overhead, and Federer went through.

Azarenka (Belarus) v Petrova (Russia)

With the weather improving all the time, my friend had to resort to buying some sun-cream!

It was nice to see Petrova again – it’s been a while – but the baseline slugging and warming weather made this match a little soporific.

Games went with serve, although occasionally out of nowhere, Petrova threw in a huge kick serve.

It didn’t take long for Nadia to be complaining to her team but kept things close to take the frst set to a tiebreak (with the umpire starting the scoring at 15/0 before correcting herself).

It took Vika a while to get herself going, but she finally started to step up a gear and took thhe first set.

Nadia was needled and there was a lot of racquet throwing around by Nadia, but somehow the momentum shifted back as she broke Vika.

In fact it wasn’t clear if Nadia was playing better, or Vika just started playing badly again.

Racquets were being tossed about by both girls now and both were fighting hard.

A forlorn challenge from Nadia on matchpoint but it was Azarenka to go through.

Sharapova (Russia) v Lisicki (Germany)

It seemed ironic that the last time both of us were at Wimbledon, it was on court 1, on a windy and sometimes rainy day, watching Sharapova and Lisicki.

On that occasion, Lisicki dominated Sharapova and went into the Quarterfinals.

The game started with holds all round, and Lisicki was having to dig deep to hold.

She finally got the break at 4/3 which saw Maria slamming her racquet to the ground.

But Sabine, serving for the first set, threw in a costly DF, and was subsequently broken to love.

What was noticeable was how low Sabine was getting down to shots and between them they took the first set to a tiebreak.

The tiebreak had it all, unforced errors, and then blistering serving from Lisicki, Sharapova forgetting to change ends and a daring squash-shot slap from Sabine to draw level at 8/8.

Sabine eventually took the tiebreak 10/8.

My friend had to leave to watch Beach Volleyball, so I met up with another friend who was a Games Maker at Wimbledon, so she joined me to watch the final set, as we got to the court just as Maria took the second set.

The light was beginning to fade, and started with trading breaks.

It would depend very much on who would blink first, and that was Sharapova who took the lead t 5/3, serving out to advance.