Murray looked like he had everything he needed. He was serving well, with first serve percentages near 70%, and impossibly high number for Murray who often sees 40% more than he sees 60%.  He had his "Nadal strategy" in place, trying for big shots rather than the usual passive style he uses against most players.
Everyone felt that the easiest of the quarterfinals was Novak Djokovic vs. Yen-Hsun Lu. Lu was reaching his first quarterfinals ever. He had upset Andy Roddick. Novak had just come off a solid win over Lleyton Hewitt. He had not reached a semifinals in quite some time. This was a perfect chance for Djokovic to
For a while, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga was taking a page out of the book to beat Andy Murray. Play aggressive off the forehand and pressure Nadal. The two stayed on serve throughout the first set. In the first set tiebreak, Murray made a few errors, and Tsonga was able to 7 points to 5. Murray seemed
Perhaps the warning signs were there. Robin Soderling was on his way to a pretty easy win over David Ferrer when a bad call upset Soderling and he spent the rest of the match trying to regain control of a situation that went out of control. Soderling needed five sets to beat Ferrer. The day
Sometimes, a match comes down to nerves. Soderling was cruising in this match. Almost right out of the gate, Ferrer seemed despondent, thinking Soderling might overpower him. Now, Ferrer probably wasn't thinking that. Ferrer is one of the better competitors on tour. Despite his diminutive size, he is quick and chases down lots of balls.
For a while, this looked like a straight set match for Djokovic. Djokovic broke to take the first set, 7-5, then again, to take the second, 6-4. Then, it seemed like Djokovic was going to suffer from health issues, a problem that knocked him out of the Australian Open, and partly explained why he lost
On this, the most match-laden day of any Slam, all fourth round matches are played. Federer was up early and won his match quickly over Jurgen Melzer. There were eight men's matches scheduled for today. Two more are completed not including Federer's win. Tsonga played countryman Benneteau and got off to a quick start winning
Due to some previous commitments, I couldn't see any of the day's matches. Although I thought maybe Petzschner might give Nadal trouble because he gave Federer trouble in Queen's, I didn't think he'd take two sets off Nadal. The last two sets resemble the Haase match, i.e., it seems Nadal figured out what to do
Let's take a quick rundown of Saturday's matches. Petzschner vs. Nadal (Centre Court, Match 2) Petzschner was a bit unlucky. The last player not to get seeded, he was "awarded" the 33rd seed when Ernests Gulbis withdrew shortly after the draw was announced. Petzschner was moved to Gulbis's position in the draw, which meant the
Given Day 1's scares, most people probably felt that Day 2 would return more to form with seeded players taking care of business, and basically that's how the day has started. Rafael Nadal played Kei Nishikori in the first round. Nishikori is only 20 years old having trained at Bollettieri's. Nishikori had a wrist injury
