Federer hit a big speed bump all of a sudden. He had a triple match point on Falla’s serve but couldn’t finish it off and then got broken twice in a row. They’re early in the third set now, with Federer up a break at 1-0. Meanwhile NBC just showed a montage of players slipping on the new grass. The weather has been dry, so that shouldn’t happen.
That was much harder than it should have been, but Federer recovered to win 6-3 in the third. Falla did catch… sigh … fire for a time and showed the kind of form he did in challenging Federer at Wimbledon at few years ago. And of course now Federer get to play Julien Benneteau, who took the first two sets off him at Wimbledon this year. He can’t have that kind of lapse again if he wants to win this thing. Elsewhere “Baby Fed” Dmitrov won in straight sets, Petschner and Verdasco won, Donald Young lost to Andreas Seppi, and the Bryans just took a first-set tiebreak against the Brazilian wildcard team (Bellucci/Sa).
A convincing 3 & 1 win for Venus over Errani, and Federer also looked much better in beating Benneteau 2 & 2. And fortunately no rain so far. I don’t see any other upsets to this point after Radwanska and Li Na lost yesterday. Serena also won easily. Azarenka and Kvitova needed three sets, but they got through. Roddick, Hewitt, Raonic and Baghdatis, all unseeded, won their first matches. (Roddick plays Djokovic next.) Del Potro, Gasquet, Petrova, Monaco, Cilic, Isner, Kerber, Almagro and Kirilenko won. Zvonareva beat Schiavone.
Thanks for the update! Cant get to a tv and apreciate the quick, inclusive report.
You’re welcome. Tomorrow should also be jam-packed if the weather holds up. If so, they’ll be back on schedule Wednesday. It’s fun to see the players rotating on and off the courts like this - Venus and Serena both won singles and doubles matches today, and Federer was back on the court later in his doubles match. He and Wawrinka beat the Japanese team in straight sets. There were really few upsets to be found today: Djokovic/Troicki, the #8 doubles team, did lose. I didn’t notice that Sam Stosur lost yesterday, which is too bad but hard to get surprised about. Both Indian teams won, and just as impressive, I think they got back to the Olympic Village without killing each other.
Djokovic smashes Roddick, Baghdatis upsets Gasquet, and Raonic and Tsonga are deep in the third set - they’re tied 6-6 right now, so one service break could decide this one. Exciting!
Raonic and Tsonga are even at 15-all in the third set. In terms of games, this is about to become the longest individual set in the history of Olympic tennis.
Ha, having read this and your previous post, my first thought was “15-all, yes, but what game are they in?” :). Nice.
ETA: 17-all now!
Elsewhere Andy Murray and Venus Williams both won, and Lleyton Hewitt is up a set and a break again Cilic and Sharapova has a similar lead on Laura Robson of Britain. Other winners were Kerber and Lisicki. Lisicki beat the woman won who logged the Golden Set at Wimbledon, Yaroslava “Camptown Ladies” Shvedova. I’d like to get that going as a nickname for her: her last name is pronounced SHE-duh-VUH, not, as I had thought, she-DO-vah. That gives her full name the same cadence as the first line of “Camptown Ladies,” if I’m explaining this right. You can remember how to pronounce the name by saying to yourself “Yaroslava Shvedova, doo-dah, doo-dah.” (And yes, I tested it.)
Meanwhile Tsonga and Raonic are still going at on serve at 19-18, Raonic to serve. This is now the longest single set in Olympic singles or doubles tennis. Raonic looks more tired than Tsonga does and Tsonga has had opportunities in each of Raonic’s last two games.
21-21 now in the third. They should at least try to make a game of it.
“Tsonga wins the Olympic marathon,” says one of the commentators. 25-23 in the third set.
Once again, Hewitt reminds us that he has not retired. He advanced as well.
Finding an Olympic draw sheet is a pain, but Wikipedia has one. Federer will play Istomin in the third round, Djokovic gets Hewitt, and Murray plays Baghdatis. Ferrer still has to play his second round match today.
D-Joker and Hewitt 1 set apiece.
Anyone think it is kind of weird to see players wearing non-white outfits at Wimbledon?
Just doesn’t look right.
So that Tsonga-Raonic match with the longest set ever in Olympic tennis? The record almost got broken after less than 24 hours. One of the Brazilian men’s doubles teams (Melo/Soares) beat the fifth-seeded Czech team, and the third set went 24-22. The Tsonga-Raonic record survived, but just barely. Jo-Wilfried is already back on the court against Feliciano Lopez.
Meanwhile Lleyton Hewitt is turning back the clock! He took the first set against Djokovic and Djokovic rallied to get the second. They are on serve at the beginning of the third set.
Tough Olympics for the Radwanskas: Aggie, the #2 seed, also lost in the first round. Ursula, a lesser player, was matched up against Serena in the first round and also lost. Then in doubles, they won their first match and then ran into the #1 team (Huber/Raymond) and lost. Because the tournaments are so small and the national delegations are limited, that’s probably happened to a few teams.
Murray and Djokovic were both pushed to three sets today, but they both came through. Venus lost in two tiebreak sets to Kerber, and Clijsters pulled off an upset against Ivanovic. Tsonga managed to win in straight sets over Lopez, which is impressive. One upset in doubles - the Israeli team (Erlich/Ram) beat Federer and Wawrinka in three sets. Probably a good thing for Federer’s chances in singles, but no repeat gold in doubles for the Swiss.
Some really good matches today. Almost all of them were close and there were a couple of upsets including Isner over Tipsarevic and Clijsters over Ivanovic. The women’s quarters are set, and the last men’s third-round match will finish tomorrow - Nishikori and Ferrer have to play their third set. The quarters look like this in singles:
Women:
Azarenka (1) vs. Kerber (7)
S. Williams (4) vs. Wozniacki (8)
Clijsters vs. Sharapova (3)
Kvitova (6) vs. Kirilenko (14)
Men:
Federer (1) vs. Isner (10)
Nishikori/Ferrer vs. Del Potro (8)
Almagro (11) vs. Murray (3)
Tsonga (5) vs. Djokovic (2)
All of the remaining men in singles have already lost their doubles matches, and on the women’s side, only Serena and Kirilenko are still alive in both draws. However a few other players are active in singles and mixed doubles (Del Potro, Azarenka, and Murray, who hasn’t played his first-round match yet). Mixed doubles is shorter than regular doubles since the third set is a super tiebreaker. And I mention earlier that the Radwanskas had a tough Olympics - Aggie and Marcin Matkowski were entered in the mixed doubles and also lost on the first round. So the sisters went 1-4 combined in the Olympiad.
I spoke too soon here. Tsonga and Ferrer were still alive in both draws when I posted, but they’re now both out in singles. This morning Nishikori completed his win over Ferrer and is now in the process of losing to Del Potro, and Djokovic beat an understandably exhausted Tsonga in straight sets. Murray beat Almagro and Federer is up a set on Isner, so the singles semifinals are almost set. On the women’s side Kirilenko upset Kvitova, Azarenka beat Kerber, and Serena wiped the floor with Wozniacki. I hope Clijsters can pull off one more surprise against Sharapova in the remaining match.
Federer and Del Potro made it through by identical scores, 6-4 and 7-6. Bravo stuck with Federer/Isner over Del Potro/Nishikori, which made sense to me. It was a close match, but Isner didn’t have a lot of chances against Federer’s serve and Federer made his opportunities count. Clijsters just didn’t have enough to keep up with Sharapova, so we’re now ready for the medal round in singles. All of these players will have a chance to play for a medal. It’s very nice to see Del Potro make it this far, and while I hope he gets beaten and sent a chance to play for the bronze, I’d like to see this push him toward bigger things. I think he and Tsonga should be playing for the fourth semifinal spot at majors - Ferrer is very consistent and always gives his best effort, but he’s reached his ceiling. Tsonga and Del Potro have more talent, and of course Del Potro is a major champion even if it feels like that was a fluke since he hasn’t come close to repeating that result in the last three years. If he stays healthy and plays with confidence I think he still has that ability. On grass, though, Federer should win this one. The other semifinal should be interesting since Murray did so well at Wimbledon. Djokovic has looked better during the Olympics than he did a couple of weeks ago. The semifinals will be tomorrow, and then there will be a day off before the finals and the bronze matches on Sunday.
Federer (1) vs. Del Potro (8)
Murray (3) vs. Djokovic (2)
Azarenka (1) vs. Serena (4)
Sharapova (3) vs. Kirilenko (14)
I was going to stop multi-posting, but the match between Federer and Del Potro was just incredible. Del Potro was firing early and got the first set. Federer toughed out the second set in a tiebreak, and the third set just kept going and going. Federer served for the match at 10-9 and got broken at love, and on they went for 4 hours plus until Federer finally got another break in the 35th game and served it out 19-17. Federer didn’t look his best for most of this match, but he dug in and his defense and court coverage were as good as ever. He was pretty emotional afterward. So Federer is finally going to win a medal in singles, silver or gold depending on what happens Sunday. Serena/Azarenka and Murray/Djokovic have been waiting and waiting throughout all this. Meanwhile Sharapova beat Kirilenko pretty easily.