Day 5: Brit-Watch at Wimbledon 2011

Flickr Creative Commons by Marc Di Luzio

So it's the end of day five at Wimbledon and once again the Brits were out in force.


Since my last Brit-Watch post Laura Robson fought back from a set down to win her first round match, whilst Heather Watson sadly lost out to Mathilde Johansson after sustaining an elbow injury. She should have one that match.


8th seed Petra Kvitova proved a class above Anne Keothavong crushing her 6-2, 6-1. But Andy Murray (what would we do without you) overcame Tobias Kamke to give us someone in the third round.


So as of today there were only three Brits left in the singles competition (which lets face it is all that really counts), so how did they do?

Firstly though I realise that of all the Brits I mentioned in my first Brit-Watch post I forgot to mention Katie O'Brien, who was the first player to be knocked out of the tournament by Date-Krumm. 


My first thought was 'oh she's beaten by a 40-year old, just give it up girl' but said 40-year old then went on to completely bring-it to Venus Williams and nearly caused a shock upset. So maybe O'Brien losing wasn't such a shocker after all. Here's a lovely red arrow for you Katie - we wouldn't want you to miss out.

Anyway moving on. First up today was Elena Baltacha, who faced 20th seed Shuai Peng of China. Baltacha took the first set 6-4 gaining a break late in the match but Peng came back strongly in the second round winning 6-2. 


The final set was a heart-stopper with Baltacha breaking twice only to be broken twice herself. Baltacha saved four break points but in the end Peng prevailed 7-5.

Meanwhile (and it was a real case of channel swapping at this point) Laura Robson stormed to an early 3-0 lead against Maria Sharapova. Sharapova found her champions spirit and battled back to take it to a first set tie-break. Laura Robson edged ahead in the tie-break early on but once again Sharapova came back, taking the first set. 


The second set saw Sharapova race ahead and although Robson broke back after an early break, Sharapova stepped up a gear to win winning 6-3. Laura did herself proud though and definitely deserved her wild card.

So, unfortunately, as predicted, Andy Murray was the only player to get through to the 3rd round. He took to the courts to play Ivan Ljubicic, the oldest man in the competition and came through in four sets winning 6-4, 4-6, 6-1 6-4 to book his place in the 4th round, needing a tie-break to beat his opponent.

Flickr Creative Commons by Marc Di Luzio

So there we have it. Out of eleven British players there is only one left and it's Andy Murray. No pressure then Andy!

Day 2: Brit-Watch at Wimbledon 2011

Flickr Creative Commons by Marc Di Luzio

So it's the end of day two at Wimbledon and a host of British tennis players took to the courts today. There were 11 British hopefuls at the start of the tournament but how many remain now?

Yesterdays win for Andy Murray against Daniel Gimeno-Traver was unsurprising, although he suffered a bit of a scare after losing the first set 4-6 before coming back 6-3 and then winning the remaining two sets 6-0, 6-0. He now faces world number 83 Tobias Kamke in the second round.

Emily Webley-Smith, who received a wildcard put up a fantastic fight against the world number 38 Klara Zakopalova and after losing the first set the lowly 244th ranked Webley-Smith 6-3 came back to win the second 5-7. It was in vain though as she ended up losing in the third set 8-6. Still it was an honourable performance.

There were high hopes for James Ward after his heroics at Queens but he couldn't respond to 19th seed Michael Llodra's excellent serving - at one point the Frenchman had 81% of his first serves finding the mark. Ward lost in straight sets 6-3, 7-6, 6-3. He still has some work to do if he is to meet his aim of breaking into the worlds top 100. 

Britain's number four Dan Evans took his opponent, 20th seed Florian Mayer, to four sets including two tie-breaks (both of which he lost), before winning the third set 6-3 but was eventually overpowered and was yet another British casualty.

Another Dan (Cox), meanwhile lost in straight sets to world number 46, Sergiy Stakhovsky of the Ukraine the lowest ranked of the British male wildcard's opponents but still too good for the world 273. The result was 6-2, 6-4, 6-4.

Flickr Creative Commons by Marc Di Luzio

Thank our lucky stars then for the all-British pairing of Anne Keothavong and Naomi Broady, which at least guaranteed us a British woman in the second round. Keothavong prevailed winning in straight sets xx xx against an inconsistent Broady - who although showed potential was no match for the higer ranked Keothavong. Next up Kvitova tomorrow, which will be a much sterner test for the British number three. 

Then came world number 68 and British number one Elena Baltacha who played German qualifier Mona Barthel. Baltacha looked nervous at times, this was after all the same court where she was knocked out a year ago against a lower ranked player, but she gritted her teeth and knocked out a 6-2, 6-4 win against the world number 114. 

Heather Watson and Laura Robson didn't get to play their matches so should be up tomorrow - so another day of nail biting and crossed fingers.


So there we have it. Out of eleven British players, three still stand and a further two are still to play a match. Not as bad as last year, so it's a step in the right direction and there's still a chance I could be proved wrong.