Tuesday, 24 June 2008
Written by Ronald Atkin
It’s time for a second Centre Court airing for that special cardigan and its even more special owner, Mister Five-Time Champion. Providing the opposition in this afternoon’s second round for Roger Federer is Robin Soderling, the lone serious hope these days from a Swedish nation which for so long produced a stream of magnificent Grand Slammers.
The portents are not exactly promising for Soderling’s good health and further progress, since Federer has cleaned Robin’s clock six times in a row, only once dropping a set as he did so.
Soderling, it may be remembered, was a victim of the weather and Rafael Nadal at the 2007 Championships in an at-times fractious match which seemed to go on for the best part of a week between the showers.
It was almost Soderling’s last hurrah of the season, since a wrist injury sustained in August terminated his year and even forced him to miss the Australian Open in January.
Since then Soderling, a former Orange Bowl and European Junior champion, has put in an industrious year, with 26 of his 37 singles matches won and runner-up spots at Rotterdam and Memphis.
Federer, not the world’s greatest trumpet blower, forecasts “a difficult match because grass suits his game and he has a great serve”. So, in summary, Roger feels “it’s not a whole lot of fun playing him in the second round”. Possibly not fun, but surely not an unduly fraught occasion.
Federer’s will be the third match on Centre, where the programme is opened by a tasty-looking clash between Novak Djokovic, the third seed and Australian Open champion, and Marat Safin, the 2005 winner of that Grand Slam and lifetime chief executive officer of the Grass is for Cows Campaign.
They have met previously only once, in the first round of that Australian year of triumph for Marat when Djokovic, a 17-year-old stripling, collected a mere three games. You can safely wager that such a trouncing is unlikely to be repeated, but never write Marat out of the script, although his losses have exceeded the wins this year.
The sandwich in this Centre Court programme brings together, for a third time, Russia’s fourth-seeded Svetlana Kuznetsova and Kateryna Bondarenko, the 21-year-old younger one of the Ukrainian sisters, who has twice so far failed to defeat the woman who won her lone Grand Slam at the US Open four years ago.
The other Bondarenko, Alona, is not so highly rated in show court status, being allocated Court 18 against the Czech qualifier, Barbora Zahlavova Strycova. Quite how they will manage to get that mouthful on the Court 18 scoreboard should be an interesting challenge. Should both sisters win, they will face each other in the next round.
The ladies’ top seed, Ana Ivanovic, is scheduled to open the No.1 Court programme with a second round match which is unlikely to rate high on the Richter Scale of potential earth-shakers. Her opponent, the 29-year-old Nathalie Dechy from France, is appearing in her 13th Wimbledon, and – even though Ivanovic will not clock up her 21st birthday until November – she has already beaten Dechy three times, though this will be their first grass clash.
The customers on No.1 Court can also take in the jolly sight of Marcos Baghdatis, the sort of bloke you would enjoy meeting in a Happy Hour, attempt to reach the third round by shouldering aside Thomas Johansson, a 33-year-old Swede with a liking for Grand Slams, having won the Australian in 2002 and reached Wimbledon’s semi-finals three years ago.
Baghdatis, who has forsaken his beard these days, holds a 2-0 record over Johansson, the most recent a four sets win at the Australian Open in January.
An early scramble is guaranteed for seats on Court 2, the infamous Graveyard of Champions, where two of the biggest names on the marquee, Lleyton Hewitt and Serena Williams, have been consigned.
Hewitt, the 2002 champion, is nursing a sore hip and feeling the aftermath of Monday’s five-setter against Robin Haase, but will have been cheered by the nature of this afternoon’s challenge, from the Spanish clay courter, Albert Montanes, who has managed just two wins on Wimbledon’s grass in six years of effort.
Serena and her glittering trench coat will be in unfamiliar surroundings away from the two main show courts but the possibilities of an ambush appear remote against the 17-year-old wild card, Urszula Radwanska, younger sister of the more famous Agnieszka, winner of Eastbourne last weekend.
For those wishing to watch a pair of French leading ladies, a trek to Court 11 will be necessary. Here last year’s runner-up, Marion Bartoli, faces Ukrainian Tatiana Perebiynis, while Amelie Mauresmo, 2006 Wimbledon winner, will confront Spain’s Virginia Ruano Pascual, who won their only previous meeting, all of 12 years ago.
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