Wimbledon 2012: Venus Williams, John Isner Both Knocked Out

Here are five thoughts from Monday’s Wimbledon action:

Technically, we don’t know how much of Venus Williams’ tired performance was due to age and how much was due to simply being out of game shape after missing a relatively significant amount of time to her diagnosis of Sjögren’s syndrome. She has raised her ranking from 135th in January to 58th now, and she could still rise higher through the rest of the year. But it was certainly dismaying watching Elena Vesnina more-or-less blow her off the court in a 6-1, 6-3 defeat. Vesnina won 61 of 105 points and matched Williams in the winners category that the Williams sisters usually dominate, and she took advantage of the fact that Williams couldn’t land a first serve. Only 38 percent of Williams’ first serves found their mark, and that’s not good when you are only winning 45 percent of your second-serve points. We’ll find out how much Williams has left in the tank, but while we cannot completely blame age for Monday’s performance, let’s just say that Williams looked old.

Only one day of play has been completed in the 2012 Championships at Wimbledon, but it has already been quite eventful. On Monday, American players John Isner and Venus Williams were knocked out of competition in the very first round.

Isner was upset by Alejandro Falla, depriving fans of a potential Wimbledon rematch against Nicolas Mahut. Williams lost to Russia’s Elena Vesnina in straight sets. Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic advanced on the men’s side and No. 1 seed Maria Sharapova advanced on the women’s side.

Novak Djokovic was just fooling around, but when the world’s top player in men’s tennis whipped out a golf club at Centre Court before winning his first match at Wimbledon on Monday, the proper tennis crowd apparently did not approve.

“It was a little joke we wanted to do with my sponsor. They provided me with a junior golf club because the bags look like golf bags. You can place them the way the golf bag is standing,” Djokovic told the Associated Press after he took a child’s golf club from his tennis bag and placed it on the sideline before facing Juan Carlos Ferraro. The spectators were not amused.

Upsets were the story of the first day at Wimbledon, which wasn’t kind to some of the top Americans in the tournament. Both Venus Williams and John Isner were dumped out of the tournament, along with No. 6 seeded man Tomas Berdych. Williams and Berdych were both very much off their games in straight-set defeats, while Isner went down in a tough five-set match against Alejandro Falla.

While those upsets were surprising, the tournament’s biggest names weren’t tested at all on Day 1 of The Championships. Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic and Maria Sharapova all cruised through their matches comfortably in straight sets. Andreas Seppi was the only ranked man other than Isner and Berdych to fall on Monday. Ranked women Flavia Pennetta, Monica Niculescu, Jelena Jankovic and Christina McHale all lost.

The opening day at the 2012 Championship at Wimbledon has already featured two major upsets on the men’s draw. No. 11-seed John Isner lost his opening round match to unseeded Alejandro Falla of Spain. Minutes later, No. 6 Tomas Berdych of the Czech Republic fell to Latvia’s Ernests Gulbis.

Isner was the United States’ highest-seeded player on the men’s side. He fell in five sets--6-4, 6-7 (16), 3-6, 7-6 (16), 7-5--to the Spaniard. Unsurprisingly, the serve was no problem for the 6’9 Isner. He served up 31 aces to just four for his opponent. Fallas committed just 22 unforced errors to 49 for Isner, however. That proved difference in what was an very tightly played match. Isner won 164 total points to 163 for Fallas.

The opening round of Wimbledon continues on with some more notable players advancing. The tournament’s No. 3 seed, Roger Federer, made short work of Albert Ramos, advancing in straight sets. Federer dominated the match, winning 6-1, 6-1, 6-1 with Ramos not providing much of a challenge.

No. 17 seeded Fernando Verdasco was able to advance to the next round of the tournament, but it wasn’t easy. Jimmy Wang battled Verdasco and made it a challenge going down in straight sets 7-6, 6-4, 7-5.

A notable upset has already occurred at the 2012 Wimbledon tournament, which opened with first round competition Monday. Russian Elena Vesnina dispatched notable American Venus Williams in straight sets, 6-1, 6-3. The loss marks another early elimination for Williams, who was knocked out of the 2012 French Open in the second round.

Vesnina closed out the match with an ace, which exemplified how dominant she was in the match. Williams has struggled to move through singles tournaments as of late, consistently dealing with injuries that caused her to pull out of several tournaments in 2011.

A two-time Wimbledon semifinalist, Clijsters is playing in her final Wimbledon after announcing she will retire later in the year. She has won three of the last seven slams she has entered, but injuries have prevented her from maintaining any sort of momentum. Since the beginning of 2011, she has won the 2011 Australian Open, lost in the second round of the 2011 French Open, missed Wimbledon and the U.S. Open (where she was the two-time defending champion), advanced to the semifinals at the 2012 Australian Open and missed the French Open. Just last week, she withdrew from the semifinals of the Unicef Open in Holland to rest a strained stomach muscle. When healthy, she is still one of the three or four best players in the world; unfortunately, she’s never healthy and currently ranks 47th because of the simple lack of matches.

A full-strength Clijsters has a significant advantage over Jelena Jankovic, the former No. 1 who seems to have established residence between about 15th and 25th in the WTA rankings. Clijsters has won seven of eight head-to-head matchups and 15 of 20 sets. They haven’t faced off on grass since 2005, Jankovic’s first on the tour.

The Championships of Wimbledon start on Monday, early in the morning in the United States, with the No. 1 ranked men’s and women’s players in the world. Novak Djokovic begins his title defense in an early match on Centre Court, followed immediately by Maria Sharapova.

Unlike previous years, the entire tournament will be shown on the ESPN networks. Their live coverage starts at 6:30 a.m. ET on Monday on ESPN2 and runs all the way through 5 p.m. ET. There will also be online coverage provided on ESPN3. Wimbledon provides its own streaming service, which can be watched at Wimbledon.com.