Monday, June 23, 2014

Venus Williams advances to Wimbledon second round

The 17th and 18th seeds went out in the first round at Wimbledon today, but is anyone really surprised? Sam Stosur and Sloane Stephens were taken out by Yanina Wickmayer and Maria Kirilenko, respectively. 27th seed Garbine Muguruza also made an exit--also not surprisingly--a victim of Topshelf Open champion Coco Vandeweghe. Muguruza is all about clay, and Vandeweghe is kind of about grass.

I liked it that Tennis Channel said that Venus Williams was seeking her sixth Wimbledon championship; she is. Williams defeated a surprisingly grass-worthy Maria-Teresa Torro-Flor in straight sets.

Paula Kania gave Li Na all kinds of problems, but Li prevailed, 7-5, 6-2. I had never seen Kania before, and I enjoyed watching her.

Victoria Azarenka and her shorts (hey, Nike, it's about time) made a successful return. Azarenka defeated an inspired Mirjan Lucic-Baroni 6-3m 7-5. Petra Kvitova advanced to the second round with an easy win (6-3, 6-0) over Andrea Hlavackova). Naomi Broady won her match, and even delivered a bagel to Timea Babos. Lucie Safarova beat Julia Goerges 7-6, 7-6. And Jana Cepelova fell in the first round--yet again. She can be cut some slack this time, though, because she played 12th seed Flavia Pennetta.

2 comments:

Todd.Spiker said...

While looking up info on Kania the other day after she qualified, I read that her tennis goal was to reach the Top 10. I thought, well, that's nice.

While that goal probably won't happen, it was still nice to see today that Kania wasn't totally delusional when she made the statement. :)

At the very least, maybe Aga won't have to carry the ENTIRE Polish Fed Cup team on her back the next couple of years as they try to really accomplish something.

Diane said...

I liked her attitude, especially. She was definitely there to compete.