Rain showers hit SW19 again today but there was still plenty of action. There were two epic matches on Centre Court under the roof, the first being between fifth seed Robin Soderling and former champion Lleyton Hewitt. The first set was a close affair but Hewitt edged the tie break to take an early lead. This boosted his confidence and he went on to take a comfortable two set lead.Soderling wasn’t up for giving it away and started creating winning shots he’d previously been missing; stunning Hewitt and it went to a fifth and final set. Soderling continue to conquer the big points and went on to win the match. Next up for the Swede will be either Russia's Igor Andreev or Australian Bernard Tomic.
The second entertaining game came from French Open Champion Na Li and German Sabine Lisicki. Lisicki has had a drop in ranking due to injuries, but back in 2009 she was as high as 22 but she showed Li that she still has a lot of talent. Li stormed to a 6-3 win in the first set but the German turned it on in the second and pushed the game into a final set. It was neck and neck until Li squeezed out a break but when it mattered Lisicki broke back. Li started producing unforced errors and the German came back to win an outstanding match of tennis.
The final game on Centre Court saw Adrian Mannarino take on Roger Federer. Federer must have wanted an early night because he swept through the match in under 90 minutes. The five time Wimbledon Champion will now face David Nalbandian, who reached the final in 2002.
Earlier in the day Novak Djokovic didn’t need to get beyond third gear in his match against South African Kevin Anderson. The No.2 seed comfortably won 6-3 6-4 6-2 to progress to the next stage.
Just before darkness fell at Wimbledon Jo-Wilfried Tsonga won his match against Grigor Dimitrov and celebrated by hurdling the net and bear-hugging his opponent. Tsonga had been a set down but came back in emphatic fashion.
Other men to progress include Karol Beck who defeated 26th seed Guillermo Garcia-Lopez in four sets and Juan Martin Del Potro whose came was stopped late on last night. Seeded players Marcus Baghdatis and Michael LLodra also made it through to the third round.
Serena Williams struggled in the first set of her second round match against Romanian Simona Halep. After her emotional return to Wimbledon in the first round Williams found strength from somewhere to come back and win 3-6 6-2 6-1. She will now face Maria Kirilenko.
Francesca Schiavone, Ana Ivanovic, Yanina Wickmayer and Misaki Doi also made it through to the third round.
GB duo Melanie South and Sarah Borwell were knocked out of their first round doubles match as were the British pairs of Daniel Cox and James Ward and Chris Eaton and Joshua Goodall. It was more positive for Jamie Murray and Sergiy Stakhovsky who won their first round match.
Other notable doubles results included the departure of the men’s fourth seeds Rohan Bopanna and Aisam-ul-haq Qureshi who fell to Juan Sebastian Cabal and Robert Farah of Columbia.
Due to the rain today Laura Robson and Maria Sharapova’s match is first on Court No.1 tomorrow. Andy Murray is back in action as well, this time on Centre Court, so rain or not we should see the Scot.
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