Blake Bounced, Pierce Finds Old Form at Wimbledon

ATP REVIEW/PREVIEW
He would seem to have a game well-suited to the lawns: big serve, big forehand, solid volley -- but James Blake just can't seem to, as the Brits say, "pass the first hurdle" on grass. The No. 26 Blake was the only seeded casualty at Wimbledon Thursday, going out meekly to Sargis Sargsian in three poorly played sets. "You're not going to win this way," Blake screamed after pitching in four doubles faults in his first two service games. Non-seeds to watch out for, advancing into the third round were Philippoussis (d. Saulnier), Kucera (d. Suzuki), and Popp (d. Sluiter in five sets). In first-round doubles action, (11)Haggard/Koenig went out to the Lapentti brothers, seen the night before cruising the bar scene around town. On Friday the seeds finally begin to meet, with seeded matches including (5)Roddick vs. (25)Robredo, (4)Federer vs. Fish, (12)Srichaphan vs. Nadal, (9)Schuettler vs. T.Martin, (8)Schalken vs. Hanescu, and an unseeded battle of the giants in Max "The Beast" Mirnyi vs. Ivo "The Lleyton Killer" Karlovic.

WTA REVIEW/PREVIEW
Three seeds went out on the women's side Thursday at Wimbledon, with Mary Pierce taking a break from the steroids to beat (14)Daniilidou, the six-foot Maria "Orgasmo" Sharapova ousting (21)Bovina, and Aussie upstart Alicia Molik defeating (31)Likhovtseva. Of all the seeds in action, (1)Serena surprisingly had the toughest time, beating Els Callens 6-4, 6-4, while everyone else was scoring bagels and breadsticks. Homer Simpson was seen in the stands, and overhead loudly bellowing "Boring!" In Friday play we could actually see a few matches that aren't blow-outs since the seeds start to meet in (4)Venus vs. (29)Petrova, (2)Clijsters vs. Reeves, (7)Rubin vs. (27)Farina Elia, (5)Davenport vs. Black, (16)Zvonareva vs. Tulyaganova, and (13)Sugiyama vs. (22)Dechy.

ATP ACTIVE GRASSCOURT TITLE LEADERS
(through June 22, 2003)
10--Pete Sampras
5--Lleyton Hewitt
3--Yevgeny Kafelnikov
3--Greg Rusedski
2--Five players tied

TOUR NOTES, QUOTES, AND BARBS
Croatia lost its only WTA event this week when the Bol Ladies Open, first played in 1991, announced it will be sold due to financial problems: "The tournament will next year be played in Cincinnati," Tournament Director Antun Plenkovic told the daily "Vecernji List" in an interview published Thursday...Former No. 1 Jimmy Connors was 2-4 in Wimbledon finals, don'tcha know...Right before first-time Wimbledon players Carly Gullickson and Iroda Tulyaganova stepped on to Centre Court to face each other, they chatted about how nervous they were; the qualifier Gullickson lost, and will play the Wimbledon juniors next week...British women went 0-5 in the first round at Wimbledon, while the men went 3-7...British bookmakers William Hill says it's a 50-1 shot that any British woman will win Wimbledon before 2010, and the shortest odds are 5-2 that it will happen once before 2061...Greg Rusedski was fined only $2,500 out of a potential $10K for his outburst directed at the chair umpire in his match against Andy Roddick, which included f-bombs and the masterbatory-likening slang "wanker," which while sounding humorous to Americans, appears quite the insult to toss around on public television in Britain... Roger Federer marvels at the quality of the Wimbledon courts compared to some of the ATP grasscourt events: "There's definitely not a lot of bad bounces here. It's quite amazing. I started in Halle, you know, and you get bad bounces all the time. Such bad bounces, you're totally lost, you know, sometimes. Here on Centre Court or basically practice courts, you don't get any bad bounces."...Each day there are 7,500 tickets available for those in the queue. 500 of those are for Center Court, which run 44 pounds each…Ivo "Lleyton Killer" Karlovic served up 29 aces in his second round win over qualifier Paul Baccanello, averaging out to a hair more than one ace per service game; including his qualifying matches, he has over 100 aces thus far; after the Hewitt win his hotel was upgraded to one costing more per night than the old one cost for a week...Tim Henman was kept waiting Thursday before his match as two actors shot scenes for next year's British movie "Two Weeks in Love" on the main show court. Led by Pat Cash, they needed three takes to get the walk on right, but the walk off was good to go the first time...Richard Williams needs attention; the dad of Venus and Serena is spouting off again this week about how they will quit tennis in a year or two...Greg Rusedski broke down in tears in his post-match conference after losing to Roddick, with the meltdown after the fan-made line call, and A-Rod feels for him: "I find it semi-humorous that the guys that were trying to stick it to me, in the end wound up screwing Greg. It's unfortunate. I feel sorry for Greg."...If Andre Agassi (33 years old) wins Wimbledon he will eclipse Arthur Ashe (31) as the oldest men's winner...John McEnroe for one was unimpressed with the fine levied against Greg Rusedski: "You cannot be serious. I'd be in jail for that. I've had bigger fines here as well, I hate to admit."…Three Japanese women advanced to the second round…Seven players on the men's side 6-foot-5 and up are in the third round…Rafael Nadal was a junior semifinalist at Wimbledon last year…Sargis Sargsian has wins over Philippoussis at the Australian Open, Roddick at the French and now Blake at Wimbledon…WEATHER: After early sun, rain is expected to move in…STAT OF THE DAY: Wesley Moodie leads all players with 49 aces.