Susan Mullane-USA TODAY Sports
Day three at Wimbledon 2013 turned out to be one of the most memorable and eventful in its history.
Seven players were forced to quit the tournament early due to injuries on Wednesday, which is the most injury-hit second round in its history since 1877. The main talking point was set to be the state of the courts and claims that the surfaces were poor, but the results themselves have turned out to be even more shocking.
The biggest news is the exit of seven-time Wimbledon winner, Rodger Federer, who suffered defeat to world no. 116 Sergiy Stakhovsky. It is the earliest exit at the Championships for Federer since 2002. It would be easy to assume that Stakhovsky got lucky and that Federer was playing at his worst, but despite making an unusual number of unforced errors, Federer wasn’t playing poorly.
Stakhovsky, however, was magnificent. The Ukrainian stunned the world by keeping his cool in the fourth set to clinch victory 6-7, 7-6, 7-5, 7-6.
That match closed a day which was packed full of results that would be the main headline in the news on any other day. Among the retirements was women’s second seed Victoria Azarenka and men’s sixth seed Jo-Wilfred Tsonga. Azarekna stated that the courts were poor, which was later followed by Maria Sharapova describing them as “dangerous”.
Sharapova, who was a winner in 2004, was another notable exit after she lost to world no. 131 Michelle Larcher but clearly suffered from an injury sustained via a slippery surface.
To add to the excitement, 2002 winner Lleyton Hewitt was beaten by an impressive Dustin Brown performance early in the day. The other shock of the day came via the young upcoming Brit Laura Robson, who beat 10th seed Maria Kirilenko in front of her home crowd.
The day really was controversial with the bizarre number of retirements, but the stunning results topped it all. They followed the comments from Andy Murray earlier on, who said he expected more Grand Slam upsets. Murray himself comfortably reached the third round and is now a favourite to meet Novak Djokovic in the Men’s final.
It’s been an eventful start to Wimbledon 2013 to say the least, with Rafael Nadal also being on the wrong end of a stunning upset on day one. Clear your head and remember today before enjoying the rest of the tournament.
Stowe Gregory is an English featured Soccer and Sports writer for www.RantSports.com. Follow him or tweet on Twitter @stowegregory. Or add to circles on Google +
