Around the Olympics: Day 3

by Pete Bodo

The gods of thunder and lightning were kind to tennis today, and with so many matches on the schedule, the action was fast and furious, from the 11:30 start time until dusk settled over the heavily trodden courts. They scheduled 55 matches for Monday and they managed to get in 53 of them, including all the singles.

What kind of day was it? Well, Roger Federer was second on Centre Court (he blitzed Julien Benneteau, 6-2, 6-2), and was one of the last four players still gamboling on the greensward at last light, as he and fellow Swiss Stanislas Wawrinka began their defense of their doubles gold medal with a few hiccups before they finished off surprisingly truculent Kei Nishikori and Go Soeda of Japan.

Team USA had a shaky start in London on Saturday, with Ryan Harrison and Christina McHale out of the event almost before it began. Today, though, their teammates stepped up (or, in the case of Serena Williams and John Isner, continued to be a force) and put those nerve-wracking first-rounders out of the way. The USA was 6-0 on the day, but in keeping with the spirit of my thumbs up/thumbs down approach, I feel obliged to whittle down the list of eligibles and award just one "thumb up."

Isner and Andy Roddick both were distinct favorites today and performed no particular heroics in their wins, so that leaves them out. Varvara Lepchenko, another American singles winner (a native of Uzbekistan, she's become a U.S. citizen and is thrilled to represent the nation that adopted her) was also a favorite, given that she's ranked No. 40 and her opponent was the gifted but still callow 20-year-old from Paraguay, ITF wild card Veronica Cepede Royg. Lepchenko won the two-hour and 34-minute war (held over two days), 7-5, 6-7 (6), 6-2. Note: Lepchenko is in the soft, bottom quarter of the draw and is facing a terrific opportunity. But let's face it, the top honor has to go to the woman who has won five singles titles on these same Wimbledon courts.

!ThumbsupVenus Williams fans must have groaned when she drew Sara Errani of Italy, the No. 9 seed in these Olympic Games, as her first-round opponent. Although Errani prefers clay to grass, she did go three rounds at Wimbledon before being by Yaroslava Shvedova. More to the point, Errani was the losing French Open finalist in early June, has rocketed up to No. 9, and at age 25 is in the prime of her career—a seasoned, crafty, mobile counter-puncher who won't beat herself.

By contrast, 32-year-old Venus has a game that has always relied heavily on the explosiveness and athleticism we ordinarily associate with youth; she's also been fighting a bitter battle with the auto-immune disease, Sjogren's Syndrome, and has played just six tournaments in 2012, yielding a modest 12-6 match record.

The only distinct advantage Venus appeared to have going in was height: She is 6-foot-1; her opponent all of 5-foot-4-and-a-half (as the media guide informs us). Venus was a real tower of power today; she hit 32 winners (to 10 by Errani) but made only 11 more unforced errors than the Italian (16). And that signature Williams serve (a family trait) was a factor in the match; when you're 32, anything you can do more or less standing still is a gift. I've been working really hard on my serve," Venus said. "I really haven't had my serve where I wanted it this year. But I definitely worked a lot on it, so that way it would be a real weapon for me, which is what I'm used to."

This was a convincing win that has transformed Venus from an enormous question mark into a gold medal contender.

Belgium's Steve Darcis backed up his first-round upset of No. 6 seed Tomas Berdych of the Czech Republic with bitterly earned win over Santiago Giraldo of Colombia, 7-6 (4), 6-4, 6-4. The tough assignment for any player who records a major upset is backing it up for at least one more round. You can ask any number of players who fired shots heard round the world at major tournaments, including Lukas Rosol. You remember how he batted Rafael Nadal out of Wimbledon, only to lose in straight sets the very next (third) round to Philipp Kohlschreiber. The situation is aggravated when the big upset occurs in the first round, when everybody is a little more prone to the jitters; knock off a top seed in round one and lose your next match and everybody shrugs and thinks, "fluke."

Anyone else growing tired of waiting for Bulgaria's Grigor Dimitrov, the latest "Baby Federer" (France's Richard Gasquet being the original), to grow up and demonstrate that he respects his talent enough to put it to good use? Granted, France's Gilles Simon is the No. 12 seed at these Games, but how do you surrender so meekly to a counter-puncher so completely in one hour, 6-3, 6-3? It's not like Simon played out of his mind, either. He hit the same number of errors as winners (14) while Dimitrov made 24 errors, 10 more than his winner count. But the stats aren't that relevant. Dimitrov, who's ranked No. 53 and is still just 21, appears to be pressing Bernard Tomic—hard—in the wasted talent department.

It's been a hard couple of days for Australia. No. 5 seed Sam Stosur was beaten in the first round by diminutive Spaniard Carla Suarez Navarro. Almost immediately thereafter, Stosur—once known more for her doubles than singles game—and her partner Casey Dellacqua were stomped by yet two other Spaniards, Nuria Llagostera Vives and Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez, winning just one game in each set of a laughter. Their teammates, Jarmila Gajdosova and Anastasia Rodionova, went down swinging in doubles as well.,"Zero from three is a bit of a disaster isn't it?," offered Stosur. Perhaps she was trying to be polite—or kind—when she refrained from citing Tomic's 7-6 (6), 7-6 (6) loss as well.

The Aussies had nobody left by the end of the first day but 31-year-old, No. 159 ranked, Lleyton Hewitt. And today he justified the wild card awarded to him. Forget the stats, Hewitt beat Sergiy Stakhovsky of the Ukraine, 6-3, 4-6, 6-3, because he's got a heart that's probably bigger than a basketball, and because there's absolutely no back-up in him. Giant thumb for Li'l Lleyton, the Platonic realization of the "Aussie battler."

Ever since Nadal pulled out of the Olympics, I've had this sneaky feeling about Feliciano Lopez—the replacement for Nadal, and a guy who probably was deeply bummed out when he didn't make it into the draw despite a No. 17 ranking, due to the bedeviling limit of four players per nation.

You can't find a more convincing reason to criticize the ITF's quota system—for that's exactly what it is—than the four-person limit in a sport that is famous for being a strict, individualistic meritocracy. To add insult to injury, Lopez is a left-hander who enjoys hitting the approach shot and volley, both excellent qualities on grass courts. And at age 29, Lopez is unlikely to qualify for the next Olympic Games.

Playing his first-round match today, Lopez outlasted Russia's Dmitry Tursunov, 9-7 in a two-hour and 16-minute battle in which the Spaniard Lopez hit 47 winners, almost twice as many as his opponent. Okay, F-Lo has struggled in his most recent tournaments (especially after he was learned of his Olympic fate—mere coincidence?), but this is the kind of thing that can really boost a player's confidence. I don't know which is more dangerous—a guy with something to prove, or one playing with house money. In either event, watch out for Lopez.

Did I mention that, later in the day, Lopez and David Ferrer dispatched the Austrian doubles team of Jurgen Melzer and Alexander Peya?

Young David Goffin of Belgium won lots of hearts at the French Open with his run from qualifying to the fourth round, where he lost to Federer. He backed up that performance at Wimbledon, where he took down lazy prodigy Tomic and the USA's Jesse Levine before he lost to talented grass-court veteran Mardy Fish. The 21-year old—who doesn't look a day older than 17 and stands under six-feet tall—might have done some damage in the Olympics, but he was blown out today by Argentina's Juan Monaco, 6-4, 6-1.

Okay, Monaco is the No. 9 seed, he's won three titles this year, and is now officially in the Top 10. But he's a clay-court expert. . . or is he? He's 28, but never won a match at Wimbledon in his first four trips. But this year he finally cracked the code and won two over decent players: Leonardo Mayer and Jeremy Chardy. Still. . . the most telling stats today were Monaco's edge in winners (15-11) as well as at the net. Monaco won nine of his 11 approaches (the task is made easier when you come in behind big approach shots), while Goffin advanced just one time more and won just seven of his approaches.

Brunstrom and Lindstedt may sound like a Swedish law firm, and what they did to the No. 8 seeds in the men's doubles was certainly legal, if painful for the beaten duo from Serbia, Novak Djokovic and Victor Troicki. Johan Brunstrom, the pride of Fiskebackskil, Sweden, is ranked No. 72 in doubles; the only time he's played with Robert Lindstedt this year was in Davis Cup. That may be because with a doubles ranking of No. 10, Lindstedt is in great demand as a partner.

Despite a relative lack of familiarity with each other's games, the Swedes went right at Djokovic and Troicki, taking the game to the Serbs and dominating the field of play—as evidenced by the edge in the volley winners department, 13-2. The big question, of course, is just how much effort Djokovic felt obliged to put in, or how much desire he was able to muster, given that he's pre-occupied with singles, struggled in his first round (he needed three sets to beat Fabio Fognini) but must face a rejuvenated Andy Roddick in his next outing.

It's bad enough that I somehow picked up a Feliciano Lopez vibe. The other name that keeps poking up out of the draw for me is that of Dennis Istomin of Uzbekistan (although he lives in Moscow). He's just 22, but a ruggedly built 6-foot-2 with a ranking of No. 35. He's always struck me as just one of those really good players who easily falls between the cracks, partly because he comes from a far-flung outpost of the game.

Today, Istomin subdued Gilles Muller, Luxembourg's only player in either singles draw, in a rough-and-tumble affair, 6-7 (4), 7-6 (3), 7-5. Istomin approached the net successfully 23 of 29 times and he smacked 12 aces and 39 winners. Clearly, he's not afraid to pull the trigger. All these details and stats take on a greater significance when you understand that the next man in his road is Roger Federer.

Let's wrap it up for today with a new feature; an upset special that we'll choose each day in both draws:

Men: If you're Andy Roddick, it may not be such a bad deal to get Novak Djokovic in the second round. Twenty-nine years old now, and sufficiently slowed to have fallen to No. 21, Roddicks' ability to get to the big dogs this year has been a bigger problem than how he reacts when he finds himself face-to-face with one—as he showed when he upset Federer in Miami.

Some of you will be surprised to read that Roddick holds a 5-3 edge in the head-to-head with Djokovic, but bear in mind that they haven't played since 2010. No matter. Roddick must be happy that he doesn't have to worry about losing to an Edouard Roger-Vasselin or Xavier Malisse at the Olympics (both have beaten Roddick this year) before he can get to the kind of match that can bring out the best in him.

Roddick must feel plenty of pressure round-by-round these days, but he has no reason to feel any against Djokovic. That could be a powerful weapon against an opponent who has shown signs of unease and a tendency to get distracted and lose control of his game with stubborn and surprising frequency lately.

Women: Heather Watson of Great Britain meets Russia's Maria Kirilenko in a second-rounder tomorrow. I never quite understood Kirilenko's game; I'd watch it and turn away some time later with no impression whatsoever. But that's neither her nor there. Watson is a British girl, so you know she's pumped sky high, and she's coming off a good little run at Wimbledon, where she lost in the third round to runner-up Agnieszka Radwanska.