The Championships, Wimbledon 2024

[Alan Stallion]

Seven days of the fortnight have concluded.

Thoughts on the earlier round:

A large number of withdrawals before play began on Day One dominated the first round. Withdrawals brings in a lot of lucky losers who otherwise would have not played in singles competition.

Alejandro Davidovich was replaced by the very impressive Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard, a tall young man with a huge serve.
Pablo Carreno Busta and Dominik Koepfer were other withdrawals.

Ekaterina Alexandrova was replaced by Renata Zarazua.
Victoria Azarenka was replaced by Elsa Jacquemot.
The highest seed on the ladies' side was Aryna Sabalenka, replaced by young Erika Andreeva.

And the biggest withdrawal was Andy Murray pulling out of singles to concentrate on doubles. More on Murray later. He was replaced by David Goffin.

Other lucky losers: James Duckworth, Olga Danilovic.

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Another story of week one was the rain. Except for Thursday, rain plagued week one competition and cause much reshuffling and postponements.

When I went in 1999, I didn't have to deal with rain during my eight days in London, with the exception of a Sunday morning before the tournament. And those were the days before roofs were put on Centre Cout and No. 1 Court.

 

[Alan Stallion]

Notable Round One upsets:

Francisco Comesana defeated Andrey Rublev (seeded 6)
Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard defeated American Sebastian Korda (seeded 20)
Thanasi Kokkinakis defeated Felix Auger-Aliassime (seeded 17)

Defending Ladies' Champion Marketa Vondrousova (seeded 6) lost to Jessica Bouzas Maneiro, the first since since Steffi graf a defending champion has lost in the first round.
Qinwen Zheng (seeded 8) lost to Qualifier Lulu Sun.
In a battle of 17-year-olds, Mirra Andreeva (seeded 24) lost to Brenda Fruhvirtova. Both of them have older sisters on tour (age 20 and 19 respectively).

Notable Round Two upsets:
Fabio Fognini, who doesn't like grass at all and is much more comfortable on clay, easily dispatched Casper Ruud (seeded 8)
Stefanos Tsitsipas lost to Emil Ruusuvuori, a guy with way to many "u"s in his name.
Hubert Hurkacz (seeded 7) lost to Arthur Fils.

The most notable upset on the ladies' side was Jessica Pegula (seeded 5) losing to Xinyu Wang.

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All-British matchups took place on Thursday with British #2 (Harriet Dart) winning in a final set tiebreak against British #1 (Katie Boulter). Later, current British #1 (Jack Draper) lost to former British #1 (Cameron Norrie)

And speaking of former British #1s, this brings us back to Andy Murray, who pulled out of singles, but played with his brother Jamie Murray and lost a featured Centre Court match to Rinky Hijikata and John Peers of Australia. A nice ceremony followed with the surprise return of legendary Sue Barker to conduct the interview.

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Anyhoo that's my update for now. Still catching up on Round 3 action.
Stay dry if you're in London.

 

[Alan Stallion]

And for my latest retro pic from 1999, at Aorange Terrace watching a late evening match featuring Boris Becker on the old Court 2 after my matches on Centre Court concluded for the day...