ITF Bloggers Bow Out at Wimbledon

Top seed Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova's stay at Wimbledon was a short one as she fell in first round singles action Saturday to Kristina Kucova of the Slovak Republic. Stephen Donald of Australia, the other ITF blogger, also lost, to Croatia's Luka Belic, but Donald wasn't seeded, and Belic is no. 6, so that's not a surprise. Wimbledon.org's account of the Pavlyuchenkova/Kucova match is here. Neither player has yet to post anything regarding their losses.

I was critical of Rolandgarros.com for their failure to pay any attention to the juniors until the finals, and Wimbledon's site has already posted two stories on the first day. So apparently they have the staff to do the work, but after reading their junior preview I'm left wondering if it wouldn't be better to have nothing at all. The writer gives the wrong boys' winner and finalist at Roehampton and then goes on to make the preposterous claim that Great Britain has only one girl contending for the junior title. They actually have seven--six wild cards and a qualifier. If I recall there was the same sloppy junior reporting last year; if I really want to know what happened I'll go to the ITF junior site. Eleanor Preston's opening day piece is here.

It wasn't a good day for the Australian junior champions, as first Pavlyuchenkova and then Alexandre Sidorenko went down. Sidorenko, of France, the fourth seed, lost to his friend Pavel Chekhov, whom he beat in the semifinals Down Under.

Jamie Hunt of the U.S. got his first Grand Slam singles win, beating James Lemke of Australia in three sets. Kellen Damico and Clint Bowles also won, while Nate Schnugg and Dennis Lajola dropped their opening matches. Donald Young did not play. Only two U.S. girls took the court on Saturday; Chelsey Gullickson won her match, Madison Brengle did not.

For complete draws, see wimbledon.org.