No disrespect to the women but, as an inexperienced watcher of tennis, I didn't expect to be more entertained by the Women's Wimbledon Championships than the men's. It all started with that epic between Date-Krumm and Venus Williams on Wednesday and it has just grown and grown since. Yesterday saw a fantastic second round encounter between Sabine Lisicki of Germany and China's French Open winner Na Li. The third seed took the first set 6-3 but the highly rated German retaliated in the second set and won it 6-4. We knew the final set would be very close and we weren't disappointed, as there is no tie break the match had to continue at 6-6. Lisicki pulled out serves of 120-124 consecutively to blow Li away and win the match 8-6.
The reason why the women's tennis has been the most exciting is because it's a lot closer. Nadal, Federer, Djokovic and Murray haven't had to face anyone too challenging whereas the top women players haven't had an easy ride. Serena Williams lost the first set 6-3 in her second round match against Russia's Halep. But Williams fought back to win the following sets 6-2 6-1 to progress.
The action only got better in the women's tennis today as twentieth seed Peng Shuai took on Britain's Elena Baltacha. Everyone had tipped this match to be close and they weren't wrong, the first set went with serve until Baltacha found that important break in the ninth game to go onto win the set 6-4. Peng game out with all guns blazing in the second set and just blew Baltacha away 6-2 to take the game into yet another deciding set. Baltacha was hoping for a dream start and she got as she broke straight away to win the first game. Unfortunately for the Brit, Peng broke back instantly and then came from 0-30 to hold her serve after deuce. Baltacha also held her serve to equalise and then broke Peng for the second time to make it 3-2 and importantly held her serve to double her lead. Peng crucially held her serve in the seventh and won it to love with an ace included before Baltacha hit a double fault in yet another game that went to deuce, Peng took it to equalise at 4-4. The women both held their serve to take it 5-5 and Peng also held her serve again to make it 6-5. This meant Baltacha had to hold her serve and it agonisingly went into deuce. Four match points later, Peng was finally able to dispatch Baltacha and progress into the next round.
The only match so far in the men's tournament that could be comparable was between Lleyton Hewitt and fifth seed Robin Soderling which took place yesterday. Hewitt took the first two sets 7-6 6-3 to need just one more set to win. Soderling took the third set 7-5 and then equalised by winning the fourth set 6-4 to set up what looked like an unlikely deciding set. Somehow Soderling found it in him to complete the comeback and take the final set 6-4 to break Hewitt's heart.
On the British front, young Laura Robson exited the competition today with an unsurprising defeat to Maria Sharapova. The former world number one won 7-6 6-3 to progress into the next round.
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