Wimbledon Day 1

That was a pretty exciting first day. Four of the sixteen men's seeds in action lost today, and one women's seed. The seed who lost on the women's side was a bit of a surprise though, as it was French Open champion Francesca Schiavone. She went down fairly tamely to Vera Dushevina, but really - Schiavone's effort to win the French was so monumental that it's not too much of a surprise to see her stumble in the next big tournament.

The men's seeds who lost today didn't include any grand slam champions, but there were still some very good players. Tommy Robredo, who has been struggling in the past few months, fell to Australian veteran Peter Luczak, who got his first ever win at WImbledon. Stan Wawrinka lost to Denis Istomin, and even though grass isn't his favorite surface, I expected him to make it further. Ljubicic has been struggling with injury, so his loss isn't too terribly surprising. But the highest-ranked player to lose - and really, the most surprising - was Marin Cilic's straight sets defeat to Florian Mayer. Cilic should do well on the grass court, but this clearly won't be his year.

The losses weren't anywhere near as exciting as the near-losses. Of the four top ten seeds in action today, only one of the players made smooth progress. Andy Roddick had no trouble against Rajeev Ram, winning without even facing a break point. On the other hand, Nikolay Davydenko, Novak Djokovic, and even Roger Federer all needed five sets to get through their first-round matches. Any of those three players could have easily lost today, as shocking as that is. Scratchy wins, but they get to play another day. They're going to need to up their level of play to make it further in the tournament, though.

Also of note, Ricardas Berankis, former U.S. Open junior champion, turned 20 today, and got his first Grand Slam win over Aussie Carsten Ball. I think we'll see more of him in the future, along with Bernard Tomic - who played tough, but still lost to Mardy Fish. It's hard to be a 20-year old or younger on the ATP tour these days, with how physical the game has become.

Looking ahead to tomorrow, it's going to be tough to top the first half of the first round. The rest of the field is in action, so we'll get to see how Nadal, Murray, Serena Williams, and Sharapova are looking. There's plenty of appetizing match-ups on offer - watch for Soderling-Ginepri, Nadal-Nishikori, Malisse-Ferrero, Youzhny-Sela, and Ferrer-Kiefer. I predict fewer five-setters and upsets tomorrow than there were today, but it still should be fun to see how these players perform.