Venus Williams was involved in a thrilling three-set win over Kimiko Date-Krumm, a 41-year old Japanese who stretched her in the second round match on Wednesday. Williams finally won 6-7, 6-3, 8-6 to enter the third round but Date’s impressive play left everyone in awe.
Williams, herself is no spring chicken at 31 and with the ouster of Date is now the oldest player left in the women’s draw.
The two were involved in a neck-to-neck battle that went to the tie-breaker in the first set, and in the absence of a tie-breaker, was decided 8-6 in the final set. In the end, it was Williams’ lesser unforced errors and the much better first serve that saw her through to the next round. The two dished out almost equal number of winners, 46 to 45 but Williams’ 12 aces to Date’s 1 and her 24 unforced errors to Date’s 31 saw her through in the match.
In some of the other important matches in the day, Rafael Nadal cruised to an easy three-setter over Ryan Sweeting, losing nine games in all, while Andy Murray won 6-3, 6-3, 7-5 to book his place in the third round against I Ljubicic. Andy Roddick won his second round encounter against Victor Hanescu in straight sets as well on a day where no other match apart from the Williams-Date encounter provided too much entertainment.
In Thursday’s second round matches, fifth seeded Robin Soderling will take on Lleyton Hewitt in a potentially exciting encounter. Roger Federer also takes to court against Adrian Mannarino, while David Ferrer, seeded seventh, will play Ryan Harrison in the second round.
In the women’s section of the draw, Caroline Wozniacki will play Virginie Razzano in the second round while Maria Sharapova takes on Laura Robson from Germany.