Second seed Li Na proved too powerful for Austria’s Yvonne Meusburger as she eased into the Wimbledon third round with a 6-2, 6-2 win at the All England Lawn Tennis Club in London yesterday.
Australian Open champion Li arrived in London on the back of a dismal clay-court season, concluding with a first-round exit at last month’s French Open, her worst display at a Grand Slam for three years.
The Chinese world No. 2 struggled in her first match against qualifier Paula Kania, but showed signs of a return to form against Meusburger, dictating play from the baseline with a range of powerful ground-strokes that have become her trademark.
Photo: AFP
Li broke the world No. 38 in the fifth game and went on to win the next four to take the first set, before breaking again early in the second.
Meusburger battled back with a break of her own to level the set, only for two-time Grand Slam champion Li to reel off the last four games to secure her place in the third round.
The three-time Wimbledon quarter-finalist is to face Babora Zahlavova Strycova of the Czech Republic, who defeated 32nd seed Elena Vesnina of Russia 6-4, 6-2 yesterday.
Photo: Reuters
Five-time champion Venus Williams overcame a slow start to beat Kurumi Nara 7-6 (7/4), 6-1 and reach the third round of a major for only the second time in her past 10 Grand Slams.
The 30th-seeded American won six straight points in the tiebreaker and ran off six straight games in the second set to beat Nara on Court Three at the All England Club.
Williams served seven aces and had 43 winners.
Nara took a medical timeout and received treatment from the trainer on her upper-left leg.
Williams, the winner of seven Grand Slam titles, lost in the first round in her last appearance at Wimbledon in 2012.
Fourth seed Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland, the 2012 runner-up, also advanced to the third round with a 6-4, 6-0 win over Australia’s Casey Dellacqua.
In the men’s singles, the player who shocked Roger Federer at Wimbledon a year ago, Sergiy Stakhovsky, pulled off another surprise.
The 90th-ranked Stakhovsky used the same serve-and-volley style that worked against Federer last year to beat 12th seed Ernests Gulbis of Latvia 6-4, 6-3, 7-6 (7/5) and get to the third round.
Last year, seven-time Wimbledon champion Federer’s streak of 36 consecutive major quarter-finals ended with a loss in the second round to Stakhovsky, who then lost his next four Grand Slam matches in a row, but back at Wimbledon, the Ukrainian found his touch again, winning points on 32 of 45 trips to the net.
Gulbis, who reached the semi-finals at the French Open earlier this month, double-faulted nine times.
Meanwhile, there was a storm in a teacup brewing at Wimbledon: British tennis lovers have been told not to bring Thermos flasks of tea to the All England Club.
A flask of tea is a staple of a British summer day out, but punters were warned not to bring one “for security reasons.”
The ban means people have to pay ￡2.10 (US$3.55) each time they want a cup of tea at the grounds.
A tweet on the tournament’s official Twitter account told people planning a trip to the southwest London site to check the list of prohibited items, adding: “Don’t bring a Thermos.”
Other items on the banned list include knives, illegal substances, political slogans, ambush marketing, tents, camping chairs, flares, klaxons and long lenses.
Writer Tim Lott said Wimbledon security guards confiscated his Thermos.
“I fought for my rights, but they were steely eyed and relentless,” Lott said.
Some Twitter-users wondered whether other brands of vacuum flask were perfectly permissible.
In the men’s singles on Tuesday, for a set and a half, Rafael Nadal looked in danger of tumbling out in the first round of Wimbledon for the second year in a row.
The left-hander dominating play on Centre Court was not the 14-time Grand Slam champion, it was world No. 51 Martin Klizan of Slovakia, but world No. 1 Nadal dug deep, scrambled for gets all over the court, slipped and fell, and got up and still hit winners, pulling out a 4-6, 6-3, 6-3, 6-3 victory — the 700th ATP Tour match win of his career.
“That means that I had a very long and successful career, so I’m happy for that, but the most important thing for me today more than 700 victories is a victory here in the first round,” Nadal said.
Next up for the two-time Wimbledon champion: Lukas Rosol, the hard-hitting Czech player who eliminated him in the same round two years ago.
“He’s a very dangerous player, very strong, very powerful shots from the baseline,” Nadal said.
While Nadal had to battle, seven-time champion Roger Federer strolled to a 6-1, 6-1, 6-3 victory over Paolo Lorenzi, an Italian with a career 0-13 record in Grand Slams.
Tuesday’s victory was Nadal’s first win on grass in two years. He was upset by Steve Darcis in the first round last year and lost to 85th-ranked Dustin Brown in a Wimbledon tuneup in Halle, Germany, two weeks ago.
Klizan, who has yet to reach the second round at Wimbledon, went toe-to-toe with Nadal from the baseline with his big-swinging forehand. He nearly matched Nadal for winners (36-35 for the Spaniard) and served 11 aces, two more than Nadal, but Nadal converted eight of 15 break points, while Klizan was only three for 13.
After Klizan took the first set, he had a great chance to go up an early break at 1-1 in the second, but Nadal saved three break points, including the third with an ace, and held to begin a run where he won eight of 10 games.
He broke for the first time to go up 4-2 in the second set.
Nadal broke to open the third set, a game which featured a spectacular 14-stroke rally. Nadal slipped and fell while chasing a shot in his backhand corner, scrambled back to his feet and sprinted from side to side, before winning the point with a cross-court backhand.
Nadal was at his acrobatic best again in the third game of the fourth set, tumbling to the grass while hitting a forehand at the baseline, rolling over, getting up and hitting a backhand top-spin lob for a winner.
Federer was never in danger against the 83rd-ranked Lorenzi.
Federer and Lorenzi are both 32, but that is where the similarities end. Only one player has a worse Grand Slam record than the Italian, Juan-Antonio Marin of Costa Rica, 0-17.
“I didn’t know about his record to be honest,” Federer said, adding that he never felt sorry for his opponent. “I’m putting in my fair share of hard work as well and you feel like you deserve it.”
In another mismatch on Court 1, Maria Sharapova sailed to a 6-1, 6-0 win over British wildcard Samantha Murray.
Fifth seed Sharapova, who lost in the second round last year to Portuguese qualifier Michelle Larcher de Brito, is bidding for her second Wimbledon title a decade after winning her first as a 17-year-old.
Third seed Simona Halep beat Teliana Pereira 6-2, 6-2 in the day’s last match on Centre Court.
No. 13 seed Eugenie Bouchard, a semi-finalist in the past two Grand Slams, also advanced.
Also in the women’s singles, top seed and five-time champion Serena Williams beat world No. 113 Anna Tatishvili 6-1, 6-2 to begin her 15th appearance at the All England Club. Williams served 16 aces and had 31 winners to overwhelm the 24-year-old American.
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