Friday, July 3, 2015

Day 4 recap: Nadal's Wimbledon skid continues

Rafael Nadal, a two-time Wimbledon champion,
lost to qualifier Dustin Brown of Germany in the
second round. 2015 photo by Paul Bauman
   Upset of the day -- For the fourth straight year, "San" Rafael Nadal was upset early at Wimbledon by a player ranked No. 100 or lower. This time, 102nd-ranked qualifier Dustin "Hoffman" Brown of Germany dismissed the 10th seed and two-time Wimbledon champion 7-5, 3-6, 6-4, 6-4 in the second round. Since reaching the final in his five appearances from 2006 through 2011, Nadal has lost to No. 100 Lukas "Oil Stadium" Rosol in the second round, No. 135 Steve "Martin" Darcis in the first round, No. 144 Nick "I'm Just" Kyrgios in the fourth round and Brown. 
   Match of the day -- Ivo "Longoria" Karlovic, a 6-foot-11 (2.11-meter) Croatian, pounced 53 aces in his 5-7, 6-3, 6-4, 6-7 (4), 13-11 victory over Alexandr "The Great" Dolgopolov of Ukraine. Aside from John "Wayne" Isner's 113 and Nicolas "I Don't Give A" Mahut's 103 in their 2010 epic at Wimbledon, which Isner won 70-68 in the fifth set, Karlovic's total ranks third in history. He blasted  78 aces in the 2009 Davis Cup semifinals and 55 during the 2009 French Open. See my 2011 story on Karlovic.
   Notable -- Magdalena Rybarikova "Obama" of Slovakia eliminated eighth-seeded Ekaterina "Do The" Makarova of Russia 6-2, 7-5.
   Men's seeded winners -- No. 2 Roger Federer "Express," No. 3 Andy "Bill" Murray, No. 6 Tomas "Free As A" Berdych, No. 12 Gilles "Paul" Simon, No. 13 Jo-Wilfried "Sing A" Tsonga, No. 18 Gael "Sayers" Monfils, No. 20 Roberto "Clemente" Bautista Agut, No. 22 Viktor "Leon" Troicki, No. 23 Karlovic, No. 25 Andreas Seppi "Blatter."
   Men's seeded losers -- No. 10 Nadal, No. 15 "Jose" Feliciano Lopez, No. 30 Fabio "Cell" Fognini. 
   Women's seeded winners -- No. 2 Petra "Fied Forest" Kvitova, No. 5 "Sweet" Caroline Wozniacki, No. 10 Angelique "Jolie" Kerber, No. 13 Agnieszka "Moorehead" Radwanska, No. 15 Timea "Ted" Bacsinszky, No. 18 Sabine Lisicki "Day," No. 20 Garbine Muguruza "Bader Ginsburg," No. 21 Madison "Where The Hell Are My" Keys, No. 28 Jelena "Weird Al" Jankovic, No. 31 Camila Giorgi "Girl."
   Women's seeded losers -- No. 8 Makarova, No. 17 Elina "Horne" Svitolina, No. 25 Alize "Doolittle" Cornet, No. 26 Svetlana "Turner" Kuznetsova.
   Stars and stripes -- "Yosemite" Sam Querrey lost to Federer, who shares the post-1900 record of seven Wimbledon singles titles with "Pistol" Pete Sampras, 6-4, 6-2, 6-2. Christina McHale "Navy" fell to Lisicki, the Wimbledon runner-up to Marion "Barry" Bartoli two years ago, 2-6, 7-5, 6-1. After two rounds of singles, the United States has six women and two men remaining. 
   Fast fact -- Kvitova, the defending and two-time champion, has lost only three games in two matches.
   Northern California connection -- Querrey was born in San Francisco and played part-time for the now-defunct Sacramento Capitals of World TeamTennis.
   Winning in men's doubles were top-seeded Bob and Mike Bryan (Stanford) and Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi (Sacramento-based California Dream of WTT), and losing was Scott Lipsky (Stanford). Fifth-seeded Raquel Kops-Jones (San Jose resident, Cal) and Abigail Spears advanced in women's doubles, but Maria Sanchez (Modesto product) lost.  
   Quote -- Nadal, on his past success at Wimbledon: "I don't know if I will be back to (that) level."
   Today's top matches (beginning at 5 a.m. PDT on ESPN) -- Centre Court: Grigor "Mortis" Dimitrov (11) vs. Richard "Don't Blow A." Gasquet (21), Novak "It's No" Djokovic (1) vs. Bernard "A." Tomic (27), Serena "Vanessa" Williams (1) vs. Heather "Elementary My Dear" Watson.
   Court 1: Stan "The Man" Wawrinka (4) vs. Fernando Verdasco "Sauce," Maria "Shriver" Sharapova (4) vs. Irina-Camelia "Ain't Too Proud To" Begu (29), "Cheech" Marin Cilic (9) vs. Isner (17).

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