On the face of it, there were two pretty big shocks on Tuesday — the defending women’s champion Marketa Vondrousova losing 4-6, 2-6 against world No 83 Jessica Bouzas Maneiro and the No 6 seed Andrey Rublev going down to the world No 122 Francisco Comesana, 4-6, 7-5, 2-6, 6-7.
Except neither was that shocking.
In Vondrousova’s case this is especially odd, given she became only the second defending Wimbledon women’s champion in Open Era history to lose in the first round. But she also came into the tournament off the back of hurting her hip a couple of weeks ago in Berlin, and she was a surprise winner herself last year.
In the case of fellow No 6 seed Rublev, he’s not been in a good way since battling through illness to win the Madrid Open in May. He’s now not been beyond the third round of his four subsequent tournaments. So Tuesday’s defeat to Comesana was hardly an outlier.
Matches like these are why, especially at a tournament like Wimbledon where the surface means results can be more variable, seedings and world rankings can only tell you so much. Intangibles like momentum, plus harder factors like fitness, are so key to players’ fortunes.
Vondrousova, who sounded under the weather in her post-match press conference, and Rublev, who acknowledged his lack of…
