Day four at Wimbledon is underway, and for the most part, nothing surprising is happening through Thursday’s second-round matches.
Wimbledon 2012: Maria Sharapova, Serena Williams Roll
Maria Sharapova was given a little bit of a scare by Bulgaria’s Tsvetana Pironkova, as both of the first two sets needed to go to tiebreakers in a match suspended from Day 3. Sharapova survived five set points in the first set to avoid losing her first set in five career matches against Pironkova and won the tiebreak, but Pironkova forced another tiebreak in the second set and won, 7-3. However, the world’s No. 1 female player bounced back and put up a bagel, winning the match 7-6 (7-3) 6-7 (3-7) 6-0. She’ll face Taiwan’s Su-Wei Hsieh in the third round.
Serena Williams took the court against the Hungarian Melinda Czink, and didn't really struggle, winning 6-1, 6-4. She'll face No. 25 Jie Zheng in her third round matchup. Elsewhere on the women's bracket, Sara Errani also had a pretty easy time advancing to the third round, eliminating Britain's Anne Keothavong.
On the men’s side, Gilles Simon probably turned some heads yesterday with his assertion that male players deserved more prize money than female players.
Simon told reporters at Wimbledon in French that he thinks “men’s tennis is ahead of women’s tennis” and “men spend twice as long on court as women do at Grand Slams.”
He also said men “provide a more attractive show” in their matches.
In a delicious twist of fate, Simon spent just about as long as female players on the court at Wimbledon Thursday as he lost his second-round matchup: the No. 13 player in the world fell in straight sets to the unranked Belgian player Xavier Malisse, who won 6-4, 6-4, 7-6 (7-5). Nice that he’s willing to stand up for his fellow male players who actually stand a chance of winning, I suppose..
For more throughout Wimbledon, visit SB Nation’s tennis hub.
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