EATON MAKES HIS ENTRANCE BUT NO ONE MESSES WITH MURRAY

 

 

It's that time of year again. The only time of year when every British sports fan going wants to watch tennis. Forget the fact that it's only one of four Grand Slams, Wimbledon is the only tennis tournament garanteed to hold the back pages and the question for the last decade plus has always been "can a Brit win it?". For most of that decade the Brit in question was Tim Henman, despite Greg Rusedski being capable of doing the business around the same time. Now both Henman and Rusedski have retired, the baton has passed to the younger Andy Murray. He didn't play in the '07 tournament due to injury and no Brit survived the first week that time out, Henman being the only one to win a match, against Carlos Moya and he got beaten in Round 2 by a lesser known Spaniard Feliciano Lopez. Henman suffered a similar fate in '06 but Murray survived to make the second week, seeing off Chille's Nicolas Massu, France's Julien Bennateau and Andy Roddick of all people.

Well Andy was 12th seed this time round and opened up against French veteran Fabrice Santoro on Centre Court. Well Santoro won the opening game on serve but Andy broke second time only for Santoro to break back for 3-3 only for the Scot to step up a gear and take the set. Santoro then opened the second by breaking Murray's serve and held for 2-0 which became 4-2 before a four-game turnaround from Andy too the set from his opponent. Nothing between the pair in the third set and it went to a tiebreak where Andy went down early on but surged back to win 6-3 6-4 7-6(7-3). Slightly messy at points but still straight sets. One down six more to go.

Elsewhere, three other Brits were in first round action. Jamie Baker got busted by Italian Stefano Galvani 4-6 2-6 3-6 on Court 19. Alex Bogdanovic got beaten by another Italian, Simone Bollelli 6-7(4-7) 6-4 3-6 6-7(4-7) on Court 11. The big surprise of the round though was when rookie qualifier Chris Eaton beat Serbian Boris Pashanski 6-3 7-6(8-6) 6-4 on Court 3 in a brilliant performance for someone ranked 661 in the world pre-tournament and used to playing on Challenger tournaments. It's the first time more than Brit had made Round 2 at Wimbledon since Murray, Henman, Jamie Delgado and Martin Lee all survived in the first round of '06.

In Round 2, Adny faced Xavier Maliise on Centre Court. The one-time Wimbledon semi finalist should have been able to give Murray a match but though the first set stayed on serve till 2-2, Murray broke and cruised his way to the first set from there. The second set was just no contest, Andy outclassed his Belgian oppenent, went 4-0 up and it was all Malisse could to to get one of those breaks back. Andy broke serve immediately in the third, Mallise stuck with it for a while before Andy pulled away to win 6-4 6-2 6-2 and at this point looking absolutely invincible. The main man was definately back in town and looking to make up for lost time.

Elsewhere, Eaton faced Russian 25th seed Dimitry Tursanov on Court 1. Eaton came in confident though and matched his opponent game for game, throwing in a love service game into the mix. That only got him a tiebreaker though and Tursonov outclassed him there. Eaton was then broken immediately in the second set and a late love service game couldn't save him. Eaten won the opening game of the third set and went down righting but despite the crowd support went out of the tournament to the tune of 6-7(2-7) 2-6 4-6. Always good to see another half decent Brit on the scene though whether he's going to hit the elite or not remains to be seen.

In Round 3, Murray faced Tommy Haas on Centre Court. Haas won the first game but Andy broke at the second time of asking and went on to take the first set. The second set was much tighter, Murray breaking serve for 2-1 only for Tommy to break back to 4-4 after a gift from Andy late on. It led to a tiebreak with Andy blowing it late on to lose his first set of the tournament. The match was really decided though in the third game of the third set. Murray slid to deuce from 40-15 and dodged two break points before coming through the marathon game and he went on to take the set. Haas had run out of fuel in the fourth set, the former world number 2 finding himself out of ideas as Murray won 6-4 6-7(4-7) 6-3 6-2.

Elsewhere, well look at the seeds that fell. Marat Safin seems to be dangerous having KOd Serbian 3rd seed Novak Djorkovic 6-4 7-6(7-3) 6-2 in Round 2 on Centre Court. 6th seed Andy Roddick got KOd at a similar stage by another Serb, Janko Tipserevic 7-6(7-5) 5-7 4-6 6-7 on Centre Court. 7th seed David Nalbandian got beaten by Canadian Franck Dancevic in Round 1 4-6 2-6 4-6 on Court 1 in one was arguably the biggest upset of the round. Leyton Hewitt in the most interesting name to make the fourth round though. The '03 champion comes in this year as the 20th seed and got lucky in seeing off Robin Haase, Spain's Albert Montanes and Simone Bollelli(who saw off Chilean 15th seed Fernando Gonzalez).

In the women's tournament, well there are no Brits left, surprise surprise. Naomi Cavaday got her 15 mins of fame, getting beaten by Venus Williams 7-6(7-5) 6-1. Venus went on to beat Anne Keothang in the 2nd round with Elena Baltacha also going out in Round 2, defeated by Jie Zheng of China. Jie went on to KO this year's Serbia number 1 seed Ana Ivanovic in Round 3 and has become the main surprise package in the women's tournament. The 3rd seed Maria Sharpova was beaten by fellow Russian Alla Kudryavtseva 6-2 6-4 and she made it through to Round four where Jelena Jankovic was the last player still standing at the start of play for Round 4.

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