Australia’s hopes of getting a new Wimbledon champion have taken a big hit after the first day of play with top men’s player Nick Kyrgios and a bunch of other names being knocked out of the tournament.
Day one featured four Aussies including Nick Kyrgios, Ashleigh Barty, John Millman and Andrew Whittington who took to the fresh lawns at the All England Club. None managed to make it through to the second round.
The 20th seed, Nick Kyrgios, was the first Aussie to take to the courts. He brought the nation’s hopes along with him, coming into the tournament as the highest seeded Australian, but his chronic hip injury which was aggravated again after a fall during the Queens Club tournament a fortnight ago came back to haunt him and ultimately caused his downfall.
It was clear from the very start that Kyrgios was not in top form as he faced his French opponent, Pierre-Hugues Herbert, ranked 70 in the world.
(AAP Image/Dan Himbrechts)
Kyrgios struggled to return his opponent’s shots early on in the match and had to rely on his serve and booming forehand to hold serve. His hip causing him trouble as he was seen clutching it throughout the match.
Herbert took the first set 6-3 in 26 minutes after Kyrgios double-faulted twice at 15-40 in the eighth game, gifting the break to his opponent.
The second set wasn’t much easier with Kyrgios clearly struggling to chase down his opponent’s shots on court as well as an increasing error count. Herbert broke in the seventh game at 4-3 and took the second set 6-4.
Trailing two sets to none, Kyrgios retired after 58 minutes and recorded his earliest exit from Wimbledon since he began playing there.
Next on court was in-form Ashleigh Barty, who was matched against Ukraine’s Elina Svitolina.
Barty, who had reached the final of lead up tournament Birmingham a week ago, came into Wimbledon in hot form. It seemed she was going to continue her streak when she broke Svitolina’s serve in the fifth game and ran out to a 5-3 lead.
The fourth-seeded Svitolina broke back at 4-5 after Barty double faulted on serve and, from there on, Svitolina won the remaining two games to take the first set 7-5.
The second set was on serve at 3-2 when rain stopped play. As soon as play resumed, Svitolina broke Barty’s serve to take a 4-2 lead after the Australian sent the ball into the net.
Barty immediately broke back in the next game, and both held serve for the remainder of the set to take it to a tie breaker. The Australian managed to save five match points in the tie breaker, but Svitolina took the match 7-5 7-6(10) in the end.
(AP: Dita Alangkara)
John Millman opened his Wimbledon campaign facing the resurgent French Open champion Rafael Nadal. Nadal, who had won the French Open last month, was playing at Wimbledon for the first time since 2015.
As it was pretty much expected, Millman struggled to make an impact in the first set where Nadal raced out, breaking Millman’s opening serve. Nadal won the first set 6-1.
The Aussie tried to fight back and was able to break Nadal’s serve once in each of the remaining two sets, but Nadal’s powerful groundstrokes and onslaught of winners was too much for the Australian. In the end, Nadal took the match 6-1 6-3 6-2.
The other Aussie, Andrew Whittington lost his first-round match against Brazil’s Thiago Monteiro after taking the first set.
Monteiro, who requested treatment from the on-court doctor, came back to win the match 4-6 6-3 7-6(4) 7-6(5) after a rain delay.
Day 2 features the remaining Australians including Daria Gavrilova, Bernard Tomic, Thanasi Kokkinakis, Jordan Thompson and Arina Rodionova.
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