Wimbledon, Day 2: Most Favorites Win Easily; Stosur, Verdasco Out

Can I just say? Team Blake. It’s Wimbledon, and one has to be tetchy-polite and all, but good gracious, Pam Shriver’s voice is an abomination. ESPN can’t pull Pam Ward for this gig instead? Hers barely registers as human speech above the noise of a sporting event, even one as hushed a a tennis match in olde England.

HT: Busted Racquet.

Three matches on Day 2 of Wimbledon were suspended due to darkness before they began their decisive set.

No. 23 John Isner’s match with qualifier Nicolas Mahut was suspended after a fourth set tiebreak, which was won by Isner with the help of double faults by Mahut. The match will be second up on Day 3, with Isner serving first and the score at 6-4, 3-6, 6-7(7), 7-6(3), 0-0.

No. 8 Fernando Verdasco suffered a bizarre loss on Day 2 at Wimbledon, becoming the highest seed on the men’s side to exit the tournament so far with a 7-6(9), 6-2, 6-7(6), 6-4 loss to Fabio Fognini.

Fabio Fognini, who may be the least aggressive player in the draw, has absolutely no business winning a match on grass, much less against a top-eight seed.

No. 16 Maria Sharapova turned in the most dominant scoreline of Wimbledon 2010 so far, obliterating Anastasia Pivovarova 6-1, 6-0.

Further from the spotlight than usual over on Court 2, Sharapova completely overpowered the young lucky loser, keeping points very short and winning in only 54 minutes.

In a battle of two of the three grass-court warm up tournaments, Queen’s Club champion Sam Querrey defeated ’s-Hertogenbosch champ Sergiy Stakhovsky 7-6(4), 6-3, 2-1 (ret.), with the clearly exhausted Ukrainian retiring due to a virus in the third set.

Querrey’s next round should be easier than his first, taking on qualifier Ivan Dodig of Croatia.

No. 1 Serena Williams, complete with Tatiana Golovin-esque red undergarments, opened up her Wimbledon title defense with an easy 6-0, 6-4 win over 17-year old Michelle Larcher de Brito.

Larcher de Brito, more known for her grunting than her tennis, muted her game and her vocal chords in the first eight games of the match, going down 6-0, 2-0. But a close third game in the second set engaged the young Portuguese player’s confidence and scream.

Day 2 of Wimbledon 2010 features the top half of the women’s draw, and the bottom half of the men’s.

There are 64 singles matches on the schedule for Tuesday, which is a fairly daunting amount of tennis to process.