By Chris Oddo | Monday, June 23, 2014
Five-time champion Venus Williams scored her 72nd career win at Wimbledon on Monday. We learned this and a whole lot more on Day 1.
Photo Source: Jan Kruger/ Getty
A smattering of stats, quotes, tweets and other assorted goodies that enlightened us on Day 1 of the Championships:
1. 18 is the unluckiest number
Both No. 18 seeds were knocked out on day one, as Sloane Stephens fell to Maria Kirilenko and Fernando Verdasco was knocked off by Marinko Matosevic.
2. 13 is CoCo Vandeweghe’s lucky number
The 22-year-old American knocked off Garbine Muguruza for the second time in as many weeks on grass, 6-3, 3-6, 7-5, for her first career victory at Wimbledon in four career appearances.
She needed—get this—13 match points to finally get rid of the 20-year-old Spaniard.
''It was a tough match and it was crazy at the end,'' Vandeweghe said. ''The toughest part for me was that I played her the week before. I knew she would come out even more fired up because of the recent memory of her loss.''
Vandeweghe, who qualified for ‘s-Hertogenbosch and went on to win her first career title, has now won nine straight, dating back to her opening qualifying match last week.
3. Ernests Gulbis wants to keep vampires in tennis
4. 16 can be pretty sweet at Wimbledon
The youngest player in the draw at Wimbledon was a cold, hard killer in round one. 16-year-old Croatian Ana Konjuh claimed seven of eight break points while almost doubling her opponent’s winners with 33, in taking out New Zealand’s Marina Erakovic, 6-3, 4-6, 6-0.
5. Marinko Matosevic likes to roll in the dirt, but not on grass.
Australia’s Marinko Matosevic snapped his streak of 12 consecutive Grand Slam losses at Roland Garros, then famously dropped to the clay and rolled from the baseline to the service line in one of the strangest victory celebrations we’ve seen in a while. Today the Aussie won his second Grand Slam match, taking out Fernando Verdasco in a huge upset, but no victory roll. What gives, Marinko?
6. Tomas Berdych has some vicious tan lines (and no clothes)
7. Venus Williams is 34, but that didn’t stop her from winning No. 72
As in 72 career wins at Wimbledon, which is more than any other active player. Williams defeated Maria-Teresa Torro-Flor, 6-4, 4-6, 6-2, and will face Japan’s Kurumi Nara in the second round.
The victory is the first since 2011 for Williams at Wimbledon.
8. Novak Djokovic is the wrong guy to face when you are looking for your first career Wimbledon win
Andrey Golubev lost the first 11 games to a very focused Novak Djokovic, and though he rallied from there to capture five games in total, the 6-0, 6-1, 6-4 victory by the Serb sends a pretty strong message about his desire to recover from his loss in the Roland Garros final.
“Last year’s semi-final took maybe even more emotionally out of me,” Djokovic admitted. “This year, again, it was a disappointing loss. Got a bit closer. But tennis requires a player to just recover and come back to the court very quickly in a matter of a week or two, so you don't have much time to think about what's happened.”
Golubev didn't have much time to think about what was happening either. He has now dropped his last ten matches on grass, and he falls to 0-4 lifetime at Wimbledon.
9. Andy Murray becomes the 10th active player to 450 career wins
Andy Murray received a rousing round of applause when he took Centre Court to open his title defense, and by the end of the match, he had one of his most sparkling performances of 2014 under his belt.
The 6-1, 6-4, 7-5 victory over David Goffin also marks Murray’s 14th consecutive victory at the All England Club dating back to the 2012 Olympics.
10. Vika is mad about Argentina
Not only did Victoria Azarenka win her first match since January on Day 1, the feisty Belarusian also displayed her crazy-about-Argentina fingernail polish and declared her unfailing love for Argentina footballer Lionel Messi.
Azarenka (and her nails) will face Bojana Jovanovski in round two.