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11.23 pm: Andy Murray defeats Xavier Malisse 6-2, 2-6, 6-3. That was far more work than it should have been for the no.4 seed, who will face the winner of no.15 seed Victor Troicki of Serbia and Potito Starace of Italy, on Thursday.
And that’s it for the day, from the ATP side that is (we still have at least another set of Mattek-Pennetta to go on Pietrangeli). Thanks for following, and we’ll be back tomorrow for an absolutely incredible day featuring the top three seeds and many more stars. See you then!
11.04 pm: Yet more breaks, but more of them to Murray than Malisse! The Belgian breaks back, then Murray breaks again then holds. 4-1 and he’s nearly home, to the relief of the sizeable core of British broadsheet journalists who are trying to file their reports before midnight…
10.51 pm: Plenty more breaks. Murray breaks one back then Malisse breaks back up then holds to win! 2-6, 6-2 and the crowd love it, rooting for the underdog. Murray then quietens them down by breaking Malisse to open the decider, then saving a break point next up with a desperation passing shot at full stretch.
10.29 pm: It finally ends! Bobby Sod carves out three break, game, set and match points. He nets on the first but then FeVer loooongs on the second. He’s through! Robin Soderling defeats Fernando Verdasco 2-6, 7-5, 6-4 and will face the winner of Querrey – Almagro in the third round.
Meanwhile Malisse has broken Murray twice in the second with some incredible passing shots from beihnd the baseline and leads 4-1 with his service to come.
10.02 pm: It’s all happening here. Murray breaks, Malisse breaks back then Murray wins three in a row, two on the hirsute Belgian’s service and it’s 6-2 Muzz. On Pietrangeli, this one’s going to runa nd run. Sod breaks to lead 3-1, FeVer breaks him right back. And we still have Pennetta – Mattek to come!
9.38 pm: It’s all happening here! Sod breaks, seventh time in the set and takes the second 7-5. He then has a break to have his right foot taped for blisters, then wins the opening game of the decider at which point the floodlights go out! FeVer is not a happy senor! We’re back on now though.
On Centre, Murray survives three BPs, a 28-shot rally and a seven-minute game. It’s 2-1 on serve there.
9.18 pm: 6-5 Sod in a set of six breaks already. Can he make it seven? FeVer almost did but couldn’t take the break point. Will he come to rue that? And here come Murray and Malisse out onto Centre.
9.11 pm: Bobby Sod comes alive at last, and it takes three match points to do it! Verdasco serves at 5-4, 40-0 and the Sod jumps all over him, Reynolds style. It’s 5-5 and this match is alive! Amazing.
8.44 pm: 6-2 to FeVer in the first, 3-2 to a much better Bobby Sod in the second, but with service. Meanwhile Murray – Malisse will be on Centre soonermost, as Sharapova dismissed her opponent in 54 minutes. Presto, as they say over here. Muzz has beaten the bearded Belgian the thrice he has played him – on indoor carpet in 2005, at Wimbledon in 2008 and at Toronto last year. In fact the Scot has never lost a set to him. Will we have another swift match on Centre?
8.17 pm: Verdasco obviously does mean business – here he is serving at 5-2 for the first set. Bobby Sod has had to second serve nine times thus far and FeVer has stepped in and whupped it every time.
8 pm: Night session! But before we get to that, Jarkko Nieminen has defeated Sergiy Stakhovsky 6-7(3), 6-3, 6-4. What a lucky, and indeed plucky, loser he is (he’s only in the tournament due to Monfils being too ill to compete). Will the Finn’s luck hold in the next round against Berdych? He’ll need every ounce of it against an ultra-tough opponent.
And in the night session, Fernando “on the slide a little bit” Verdasco is 3-1 up on Robin “finalist in the last two clay slams” Soderling. Bobby Sod leads their h2h 4-2 including 2-1 on clay, but the last time they met on the dirt, FeVer won, in Barcelona just over a year ago. Verdasco is down to 17 in the world but made the semis here last year. He’s got a nice short haircut as well and looks like he means business. With Rome being a couple of weeks earlier last year, he’s already “lost” all of those semi-final points, hence the fact that he’s not seeded.
7 pm: Stakhovsky took the opener off Nieminen in a tie-break but the Flying Finn is now serving to take it into a decider. And he does it, via a break point and a deuce. 6-3.
6.55 pm: Wowzers! The Madrid semi-finalist is out, beaten by a qualifier! Paolo Lorenzi defeats Thomaz Bellucci 7-6(5), 6-3. Amazing. The local boy sent the court 10 crowd wild and he’ll get a crack at Rafa tomorrow – no doubt in the evening on Centre or Pietrangeli, probably the former.
6 pm: Stanislas Wawrinka defeats Fabio Fognini 6-7 (5), 6-2, 6-4. There were plenty of ups and downs in that game, with disputed calls, whistles from the partisan crowd whenever Stan questioned any decisions but in the end, the Swiss no.2 came from a set down to set up a second round match on Wednesday with another Italian, Filippo Volandri.
Elsewhere Feliciano Lopez defeated Michael Llodra 7-6(2), 6-1 to earn a crack at Philipp Kohlschreiber in the third round, and yet another Italian, wild card Paolo Lorenzi, has taken Madrid semi-finalist Thomaz Bellucci to a first set tie-break. And he’s serving and volleying like days of yore on grass!
Jarko Nieminen, who won the battle of the lucky losers yesterday with Adrian Mannarino, is about to serve for the first set at 6-5 against Sergiy Stakhovsky, who saved three match points in his own first round match against Victor Hanescu.
4.55 pm: Tomas Berdych defeats Juan Monaco 6-2, 6-2 and will face the winner of the Nieminen – Stakhovsky match which will be on Court no.3 once Lopez has defeated Llodra (4-1 to the Spaniard in the second set).
4.30 pm:
Cat amongst the pigeons here! 2008 finalist Stan “the man” Wawrinka has just been edged out in a tight first set by home hopeful Fabio Fognini! 7-5 in the tie-break, after an exchange of breaks earlier in the set (one break point each, one taken). Stan the Man hasn’t won ever since the news became public that he’d walked out on his wife and baby daughter to concentrate on his tennis (in between the walking out and his estranged wife going public, he was on a roll…)
TBerd, who to my knowledge hasn’t walked out on Lucie Safarova (and if he did there would be a queue of suitors a mile long at her door), leads 6-4, 5-2 over Pico Monaco, while Feli Lopez took the opener 7-2 in a tie-break over Michael Llodra (who prefers grass and in particular fast indoor courts and hasn’t walked out on his wife, daughter Manon and son Teo).
More American woe. Juan Ignacio Chela defeats John Isner 6-4, 6-1 to set up a second-round tie with Gilles Simon. That match could woulda shoulda been a US derby between Isner and Roddick… , and he will face one of the few Americans to emerge unscathed thus far, Mardy Fish.
1.50 pm: The Italians are still doing it tough, and the Americans. Wild card Flavio Cipolla is 1-4 down to 30-something Ivan Ljubicic, while big bad John Isner, all 6’9″ of him, lost the opening set to Juan Ignacio he’s from Argentina so must be good on clay Chela.
1.20 pm: Richard Gasquet is through to the third round, winning 6-1, 6-2 over Igor Andreev and on Thursday will face the winner of Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Roger Federer. And while the Italian wildcard put up a valiant fight and wowed the crowd on Centre with some crisp drives, it turned out to be to no avail. Nicolas Almagr
o defeats Simone Bolelli 6-0, 7-5 and the no.9 seed will face Sam Querrey in the second round tomorrow.
1 pm: Two retirements. Ivo Karlovic is out with a lower back injury, while Kevin Anderson has also been forced to retire. That means that Marin Cilic and Sam Querrey are through. Cilic will play no.6 seed and clay-court bandito David Ferrer tomorrow, while Querrey will likely take on Almagro, who is 6-0, 3-3 to the good on Centre against bello Bolelli. Gasquet isn’t hanging around, leading 6-1, 4-1 over Andreev.
12.25 pm: Good afternoon one and all, and welcome to the continuation of the first and the start of the second round for the men. Marin Cilic was an early bird, notching up a 6-4 in the first set over “Doctor Ivo” Karlovic, while Sam Querrey is trying to get further than compatriot Andy Roddick and is locked at 6-6 in the opener with South Africa’s Kevin Anderson.
We have action on Centre Court as well with local hearththrob Simone Bolelli up against Nicolas Almagro. Ad he’s up against it as well – Almagro is a real clay-court bandit and has semi-bagelled his host (3-0). On the other show court, named Pietrangeli after Italy’s finest ever men’s player and the tournament director here, Ritchie Gasquet has jut broken to lead Igor “qualifier” Andreev 3-1.
The WTA matches this afternoon are in a separate blog so get two windows open on your computers, and feel free to tweet me @DrewLilley and give me your feedback
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