Wimbledon: 1st Round

Well I have given up waiting until the 1st round is officially over to post this, since Isner and Mahut are playing on and on and on and on and on and on and on, now it's like 58-all in the 5th.  That is really unbelievable.

Men

Eight seeds are already gone on the men's side, the most in a slam first round this year.  Compare it to 5 at this year's French and 7 at the AO.  For those who were wondering, just 4 seeds lost in the first round of 2009 Wimbledon (Safin, Blake, Lopez, and Tursunov).  Interesting there, only Lopez was seeded this year, and both Blake and Tursunov also lost in round 1 this year.

Those seeds out are:
8) Verdasco to Fognini 7-6, 6-2, 6-7, 6-4
11) Cilic to F.Mayer 6-2, 6-4, 7-6
14) Ferrero to Malisse 6-2, 6-7, 7-6, 4-6, 6-1
17) Ljubicic to Przysiezny 7-5, 7-6, 6-3
19) Almagro to Seppi 7-6, 7-6, 6-2
20) Wawrinka to Istomin 6-7, 6-1, 2-6, 7-6, 6-3
24) Baghdatis to Lacko 6-3, 2-6, 6-3, 6-1
30) Robredo to Luczak 2-6, 7-6, 6-2, 7-5

Some notes on that:  Robredo is now 0-3 in slams this year despite being seeded at all of them.  Ferrero was an unseeded quarterfinalist a year ago, and Wawrinka made the 4th round, losing in that epic 5-setter to Murray under the roof.  After Wimbledon, Ferrero will be ranked no higher than 21st, Wawrinka 25th, and those numbers will likely continue to fall as others keep winning.  No large changes to virtual rankings yet since a 2nd round appearance is only worth 45 pts.

Top 50 men who have successfully defended 2nd round points:  Sam Querrey (USA), Michael Llodra (FRA)
Others failing to defend 2nd round points:  Juan Martin Del Potro (ARG), Ernests Gulbis (LAT), Guillermo Garcia-Lopez (ESP), Janko Tisparevic (SRB)

Women

While seeded men are gone, only 3 seeded women left after one match, but ironically both French Open finalists were among those.  And the other was beaten by a woman who made the 4th round last year while she herself lost in round 1 then too.  Also, despite the inconsistency well documented on the women's tour, only 3 seeds lost round 1 of the French Open and 5 were gone by this point at the AO.  I think that's because say places 15-30 on the WTA rankings are relatively strong.  At 2009 Wimbledon, 7 seeds lost their first match (Schnyder, Cornet, Wozniak, Kanepi, Bammer, Szavay, Chakvetadze).  Maybe not surprisingly, none of these players was seeded this year, and most are outside the top 50 even.

But in case you haven't figured it out yet, year are the ousted seeds:
5) Schiavone to Dushevina 6-3, 6-4
6) Stosur to Kanepi 6-4, 6-4
25) Safarova to Cibulkova 7-6, 6-4

More notes:  Two semifinalists and two other quarterfinalists from last year are already gone (3 to injury -- Dementieva, Lisicki, and Safina, one to an upset -- Schiavone).  With the losses by Stosur and Schiavone, Dementieva will likely be ranked #6 in the post-Wimbledon rankings.  All players ranked 36 to 45 lost their 1st round matches while there were only two losses by players ranked 8 through 35 (#26 Safarova and #33 Petkovic).  Those two didn't have any points to defend, so the virtual rankings are largely unchanged.  Also of note is Ivanovic losing failing to defending her 4th round appearance, likely sending her back outside the top 50.  Ditto for Elena Vesnina.  Cibulkova, despite making the 4th round last year, has already moved up five spots to #41 in the virtual rankings, and Parra Santonja is up 8 to #39 because of their wins and the aforementioned fallout of players 36 to 45.

Top 50 women who have successfully defended 2nd round points: Shahar Peer (ISR), Maria Sharapova (RUS), Aravane Rezai (FRA), Jie Zheng (CHN), Alisa Kleybanova (RUS), Maria Kirilenko (RUS), Yaroslava Shvedova (KAZ), Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova (RUS), Sara Errani (ITA), Arantxa Parra Santonja (ESP).
Others failing to defend 2nd round points: Kateryna Bondarenko (UKR), Timea Bacsinszky (SUI), Olga Govortsova (BLR), Shuai Peng (CHN).

**Note:  I have added a link to the right side of the blog to my Google Doc of the Wimbledon Virtual Rankings.  This is being updated daily after the day's match have concluded.