Wimbledon Qualifiers Day 3 Wednesday

My day at Wimbledon Qualies started out a bit slower paced today than on Monday and I arrived at about 11.45am, just in time for the second set of Caroline Garcia and Naomi Broady, which was a tight affair. Garcia served for the match and seemed to be easing to the win but had a wobble and allowed Broady to take her to a tiebreak but steadied the ship to continue her good progress. At the same time I was watching some of Belgium's An-Sophie Mestach and Brasilian Pereira. The first two sets were very competitive with some very good rallies but Mestach ran away with the third dut to Pereira's seemingly progressive meltdown in both form and effort.



Garcia defeat Broady







Mestach defeats Pereira





After that it was onto the Men's Final round of Qualifying. Today I was mostly drifting between matches and looking for competitive or exciting performances. I started out with a favourite of mine, Igor Kunitsyn against Jan-Lennard Struff but after only a few games this wasn't going to be competitive. Struff was solid and Kunitsyn was looking his usual UE merry, ordinary self. So I moved on (Struff went on to win in straights).











Denis Kudla defeating Ruben Bemelmans. This proved to be a comfortable matchup for Kudla, I expected a bit more from Bemelmans but whilst I was watching he was easily frustrated, arguing with everyone at hand or just with himself, which didn't help his cause.











Odesnik defeating Rochus 2-6 2-6 6-4 3-0 RET. This was a sad match from Rochus supporters, Oli had been in fine form cruising through the first 2 sets. Odesnik's level improved a lot during the third set and it turned into an exciting contest with just a slight lapse on serve from Rochus proving the difference but I still felt he would go on to win the match. However early on in the 4th set









Dustin Brown had a comfortable win over Evgeny Korolev.



After Oli Rochus' sad retirement I rushed over to Court 8 with the intention to see some of Michal Przysiezny, who plays very entertaining all court tennis but he was another one of todays many fast winners and had already finished. So I watched some of Stephane Robert who had a titanic struggle with Dzmitry Zhrymont but eventually prevailed in 5 sets. Robert plays a quite solid game with decent groundstrokes on both wins but Zhrymont was the more interesting player here, breaking up the rallies and playing some nice volleys on occasion. Anyway it proved to be a good win for the veteran Frenchman, who was later joined in the Main Draw by an even older Frenchman, Marc Gicquel.









Stephanie Foretz Gacon / Eva Hrdinova defeating Brits Webbley Smith/Fitzgerald



Marc Gicquel defeating Javier Marti

























Bastian Knittel defeats Flavio Cipolla in 5 sets to make his first ever Slam Main Draw at 29. On grass. When his favourite surface is very much clay.













Gabashvili winning





Knittel/Cipolla continuing after Knittel's Medical Timeout...





Knittel unable to convert his Match Points is getting very eager to finally get over the line.



That special moment when you realise you are going to play at Wimbledon.









I returned to see the conclusion of Gicquel's win over Javier Marti making it yet another Frenchman in the Main Draw.







I concluded my day with the last Men's qualifying match of the day between the two Americans Rhyne Williams and Bobby Reynolds, this was an entertaining affair with some nice fast points, edged in 4 sets by the more experienced Reynolds.





That's all from Wimbledon Qualifiers from me for this year, hope you enjoyed this little insight into Wimbledon's quaint Garden Party in the back of the LTA's grounds. Next stop for me: SW19. Bring on the madness!