Former Wimbledon champ Maria Sharapova lived up to her self-disparaging pre-tournament odds, exiting in the second round on Wednesday 6-2, 3-6, 6-4 to No. 45-ranked Gisela Dulko of Argentina.
“Losses are tough — more here than at any other tournament,” said Sharapova, who with a slow-healing surgically-repaired shoulder chucked in seven double faults in the second set alone. “I would have liked to have a longer season before coming here…It took me a while to get going. It’s a little too late to start picking yourself up when you’re down a set and 3-love.”
World No. 2 Serena Williams, who says she should have won more Wimbledon titles, also moved into the third round with a 6-2, 6-1 victory over Jarmila Groth of Australia.
“I should have won more than twice here, but I didn’t,” Williams. “And hopefully I can rectify that this year.”
The remainder of the Top 10 seeds in action lost only 13 games in advancing in (4) Elena Dementieva, (7) Vera Zvonareva, (8) Victoria Azarenka, and (10) Nadia Petrova.
There were upsets on the day, with Daniela Hantuchova bouncing (16) Jie Zheng, Regina Kulikova beating (27) Alisa Kleybanova, and Roberta Vinci taking out (31) Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova.
Match-ups of interest on Thursday at the All England Club are (9) Caroline Wozniacki vs. Russian pin-up Maria Kirilenko in an all-photo-op, (3) Venus Williams vs. Kateryna Bondarenko of the Ukraine, (1) Dinara Safina vs. Paraguay’s Rossana De Los Rios, Czech veteran Iveta Benesova vs. (6) Jelena Jankovic, (17) Amelie Mauresmo vs. Slovak Kristina Kucova, American Melanie Oudin vs. Yaroslava Shvedova, (11) Agnieszka Radwanska vs. China’s Shuai Peng, Italy’s Sara Errani vs. the shaky (13) Ana Ivanovic, and American Vania King vs. (15) Flavia Pennetta.
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