Five things you may have missed from Wimbledon Day 1

With so many matches happening on the first day at Wimbledon, here are five results that caught our eye.

Author:
Jon Wertheim
Publish date:
Jul 3, 2017

Days like Monday are almost tennis overload, so many matches that results get lost in the folds. Five that caught our eye:

1. Kevin Anderson cracked the top 10 in 2015 and struggled with injuries ever since. He took a major step in his first match at Wimbledon, beating Fernando Verdasco. Inasmuch as Anderson qualifies, here’s a serious dark horse.

2. The good news for Donald Young: he won his 18th match of the year—tying last year’s total—when Denis Istomin retired. The less good news: Young now gets Rafael Nadal in the second round.

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3. Madison Keys left the French Open in tears, her left wrist injury still troubling her. She returned to the Mayo Clinic for another round of surgery. Playing pain-free tennis, Keys, the 17th seed, looked terrific in her first match here, beating Nao Hibino in straight sets.

4. Elina Svitolina may have been the fourth seed, but she came into Wimbledon with a losing record for her career here. To her credit, she avoided the upset bug today beating Ash Barty 7-5, 7-6.

5. Mirjana Lucic Baroni was beating Carina Witthoeft 6-3, 5-7, 5-0 and held match point to win the final set in a bagel. She lost the point, lost the game and lost the set 8-6. Still another reminder: cruel sport, this tennis….