Roger Federer arrived at Wimbledon in good spirits after being absent the Halle tournament to recover from a groin injury suffered during his run to the Roland Garros final. After winning Wimbledon six times in his glorious career, it is not startling that Federer delights in his trips to the All England Club and has a good feeling about his bid to draw level with Pete Sampras's record of seven Wimbledon titles in the Open Era. Now into the second week of Wimbledon, the round of sixteen, Federer met Mikhail Youzhny and won that match in four set Mikhail having taken the first set. Bernard Tomic, the young Australian has had a terrific run so far at The All England Club that has guaranteed him the seeding as Australia’s number at the end of the tournament. He won what many critics assumed would be his toughest match yet against Xavier Malisse and will meet Novak Djokovic in an interesting quarterfinal clash. Novak defeated Michael Llodra comfortably in straight sets. Llodra had a decent run at Roland Garros this year by reaching the semifinal with Serbian doubles partner Nenad Zimonjic. Last year’s runner-up at the All England Club Tomas Berdych fell at the hands of the American Mardy Fish. Fish is the only American man left standing after Andy Roddick was eliminated by Spain’s Feliciano Lopez in the third round. The defending champion Rafael Nadal met the giant aggressive Argentine Juan-Martin Del Potro, who has also played himself back to form since struggling with a hip injury. Andy Murray dismantled Frenchman Richard Gasquest in straight sets 7-6 6-3 6-2 and he will meet Feliciano Lopez who made an impressive comeback in his match against Kubot, winning 3-6 6-7 7-6 7-5 7-5.
In the women’s game Maria Sharapova has never been back in the final of Wimbledon after winning it in 2004; and that is a fact that many of her fans will probably find odd. Maria will play Cibulkova. She ensured her place in the quarterfinals after dispatching China’s Shuai Peng in straight sets in the round of 16. Neither Caroline Wozniacki nor Dominika Cibulkova has ever been to a Wimbledon quarterfinal but it was the Slovakian’s turn to advance through to her first Wimbledon quarterfinal. Cibulkova broke the Wozniacki serve at five games all to serve for the match. Before then, there had been five breaks of serve in the decider, but the one that came at five games all would prove costly for World number one Caroline Wozniacki. Cibulkova played superb tennis, really raised her level of play after losing the first set 1-6. Three match points arrived for Cibulkova two hours later and she only needed to convert one. She won that thriller of a match 1-6 7-6 7-5 in the end. Tsvetsana Pirinkova met Venus Williams and beat her for the second consecutive time, 6-2 6-3 the final score read in the round of sixteen; and she went on to book her place in the quarterfinals to meet Petra Kvitova. The Bulgarian was relieved to come through victorious in the end there against Venus Williams saying in her post match interview that she is always relaxed when she comes to this particular slam. She also added that it wasn’t that Venus played below par, she pushed her and Venus made a few errors, that’s the nature of the game and she’s glad she was the winner of the match in straight sets. Sister Serena William’s returned to the women’s tour after a year of absence hoping to defend her title here and equal sister Venus’s five Wimbledon titles. She played a ridiculously entertaining match against Marion Bartoli of France and eventually fell short. Marion asked questions that needed answers with hard hit and well placed ground strokes and got the better of the former world number one in the long rallies. The defending champion fought back, played the big points well, and came up with some good serves when she needed to. Despite all her efforts ultimately she failed to take the match to a deciding set; Bartoli won 6-3 7-6, improving more and more on grass after reaching her fifth straight Eastbourne semifinal this year. She will take on the young talented Sabine Lisicki next.
