By Ros Satar, at Wimbledon
- There has been a number of shock exits this year before we even got to the third round
- We look at who gets to enjoy a longer summer and who benefits
WIMBLEDON, UK – As we get to the business end of the first week, we have already had a number of shocks, and who gets to benefit as sections of the draw blow wide open.
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Half the men’s seeds have exited before the third round, with the second half of the draw still stacked and loaded. However in the women’s draw, six of the top eight seeds went walkabout before the start of the third round. Who gets to benefit from the summer exodus?
Fond farewells from the Men’s draw
- (R2) Marin Cilic [3]
- (R1) Grigor Dimitrov [6]
- (R1) Dominic Thiem [7]
- (R1) David Goffin [10]
- (R2) Diego Schwartzman [14]
- (R1) Borna Coric [16]
- (R2) Lucas Pouille [17]
- (R1) Jack Sock [18]
- (R1) Pablo Carreno Busta [20]
- (R1) Richard Gasquet [23]
- (R2) Denis Shapovalov [26]
- (R2) Damir Dzumhur [27]
- (R1)Filip Krajinovic [28]
- (R1) Marco Cecchinato
- (R1) Fernando Verdasco [30]
- (R1) Leonardo Mayer [32]
An anticipated fourth round clash for Roger Federer with his Halle foe Borna Coric was one of the first scattered seeds of note on the first round, with the first round exits of Grigor Dimitrov and David Goffin being particularly of note.
In a section of the draw that boasted several men who view grass probably as a place to go have a picnic on, Rafael Nadal’s half looked to opened up leaving him Fabio Fognini on grass as a possible fourth round, but the danger of Juan Martin Del Potro left at the top of the quarter.
Maybe the biggest shock was one of the favourites and last year’s runner-up Marin Cilic being undone by a rain delay and coming out a day later to be ousted in the second round by Guido Pella, perhaps robbing us of any challenger in that half of the draw for Federer, en route to the final.
Nadal’s half still has Novak Djokovic and Nick Kyrgios as the real dangers to come out of that top section.
Fond farewells on the Ladies’ Draw
- (R2) Caroline Wozniacki [2]
- (R2) Garbiñe Muguruza [3]
- (R1) Sloane Stephens [4]
- (R1) Elina Svitolina [5]
- (R1) Caroline Garcia [6]
- (R1) Petra Kvitova [8]
- (R1) Coco Vandeweghe [16]
- (R1) Magdalena Rybarikova [19]
- (R1) Anastasija Sevastova [21]
- (R2) Johanna Konta [22]
- (R1) Maria Sharapova [24]
- (R1) Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova [30]
- (R1) Zhang Shuai [31]
- (R2) Agnieszka Radwanska [32]
British No. 1 Johanna Konta perhaps was the surprise seed to suffer the most with the seeding being given to Serena Williams – she faced the fired-up, unseeded Dominika Cibulkova, twice a quarter-finalist at Wimbledon, and her chance of defending semi-final points came to an abrupt end in straight sets.
It will be interesting to see how Jelena Ostapenko copes with her section of the draw which opened up nicely, while the second quarter still has a lot of good seeds intact including 2016 finalist Angelique Kerber. She might fancy her chances to come out of this section.
Karolina Pliskova achieved a milestone in making the third round for the first time, but all eyes will be on the two Williams sisters, in different quarters of the draw. For Serena, that section has opened up well with the loss of the No. 2 seed Caroline Wozniacki – she could capitalise.
The third round takes place on Friday and Saturday at Wimbledon with play on the outside courts starting at 11:30am, with Centre Court and No, 1 Court starting at 1pm (BST).
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