Wimbledon 2012: Rafael Nadal Advances, Mardy Fish Dominates On Day 2

Day 2 of the 2012 Championships at Wimbledon on Tuesday was light on the upsets that highlighted Day 1 at the All England Club. The likes of No. 2 Rafael Nadal, No. 4 Andy Murray and No. 5 Jo-Wilfried Tsonga on the men’s draw, and No. 2 Victoria Azarenka, No. 4 Petra Kvitova and No. 6 Serena Williams on the women’s draw all advanced with straight-set victories.

Surprisingly, Nadal may have had the most difficult match of any of the big names in play. He fell behind 3-0 in the first set against Thomaz Bellucci of Brazil before coming back to win the tiebreak and ultimately the match, 7-6 (7-0), 6-2, 6-3.

The 2012 Championships at Wimbledon continue with first round action Tuesday. No. 4 on the men’s draw Andy Murray, and No. 2 on the women’s side Victoria Azarenka both advanced with easy straight-set victories.

Murray took down No. 47 Nikolay Davydenko, 6-1, 6-1, 6-4, at Centre Court. Murray broke the Russian six times over the course of the match, including three times in the first set alone. He was very efficient on his serve as well, scoring on 83 percent of his eligible first serves, and 75 percent of his second serves.

Rafael Nadal got off to a rough start in his match against Brazilian Thomaz Bellucci, falling behind 3-0 in the first set, but he recovered to win that set in a tiebreak. The other two sets were considerably less eventful as Nadal cruised to a comfortable 7-6, 6-2, 6-3 victory.

Nadal broke Bellucci twice in each set, but couldn’t hold his own serve to start the match. He got just 54 percent of his first serves in, and Bellucci was two-for-two on break points. Nadal’s serve was much better in the last two sets, avoiding a break in the second set and giving up just one in the third set.

Mardy Fish is back from the heart problems that caused him to miss the French Open, and he looked healthy in his first round match, defeating Ruben Ramirez in straight sets. Ramirez managed to extend all three sets and force Fish to win more than six games to progress, but couldn’t steal a set in Fish’s 7-6, 7-5, 7-6 victory.

Fish’s serve was solid, topping out at 133 miles per hour. He managed 24 aces and won an impressive 93 percent of points on his first serve against Ramirez, a clay court specialist who has never advanced past the first round at Wimbledon. Fish moves on to face the winner of the James Ward -- Pablo Andujar match in the second round. His quarter of the draw features Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Rafael Nadal, who he’ll have to go through to better his career-best result of a quarterfinal finish at Wimbledon.

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.