Wimbledon Day One.

A dry first day ( always a priority ). Saw a little of Djokovic this evening between arriving home and going out to the pub for Mrs B’s birthday. Can’t say he gave the impression of a potential champion. The last player I saw doing that much headshaking was the diabolical Ms T. Poutchek at Edgbaston. A bit pissed off with Julien Benneteau – couldn’t he have performed like that when he had my £40 on him against a bleedin’ Argentinian grasscourt novice at Eastbourne last week?
Interesting points of the day –

i. Federer still managed to play ok, despite concentrating on showing off his new Nike kit.

ii. James Blake being done over in straight sets by Seppi – didn’t see that one coming.

iii. So much for warm-up event success – Dancevic, Tanasugarn and Wickmayer all fell in straight sets after reaching finals last week. A lay of Becker at 1.3 tomorrow anyone? Tursunov at 1.4? Possibly the extra day may help them.

iv. No surprise that the Almagro / Monaco match went to 5 sets in 4 hours – two good baseliners slugging it out.

v. Glad to see Daniel Koellerer go out in 5 sets after winning the first two. Ha! (See Scott’s post here ).

vi. Petrova v Sharapova in round three is looking tasty.

vii. Plenty of plucky Brit defeats today, there will probably be six more tomorrow. Let’s hope there aren’t seven!

My 100% tipping record is shattered! Sprem was always a coin toss game, but my emphasis on grasscourt form did for me with Rybarikova ( and Wickmayer ). Wimbledon is friendlier than the other grasscourt events for the baseliners, and Vinci and Vesnina are decent players. So scraped, to use my local dialect, ‘tuppence’ from my day 1 bets ( or ‘bugger all’ to non-northerners ). Had an hour or so of trading this evening, so am currently +£30.52 for the tournament. I should stop now, that’s my most successful Wimbledon ever! Doh.

Day two then, same two batches as last night.

My bets

Tommy Haas @ 1.14
Victor Hanescu @ 1.75
Paul-Henri Mathieu @ 1.42 ( holding breath! )
Radek Stepanek @ 1.38
Kateryna Bondarenko @ 1.50
Melinda Czink @ 4.30

Other Tips

Michael Llodra @ 1.36
Anne Keothavong @ 1.24
Robby Ginepri @ 7.80

Oh, and if you’re going to Wimbledon, avoid Pablo Andujar v Martin Vassallo-Arguello. Yawn.