 Photographer: Susan Mullane
Date: 27 Jun 2004 |  Photographer: Susan Mullane
Date: 27 Jun 2004 |  Photographer: Susan Mullane
Date: 27 Jun 2004 |  Photographer: Susan Mullane
Date: 27 Jun 2004 | | |
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| 27 Jun 2004 - Wimbledon - Eleanor Preston | |
| Ward reigns despite the rain |
Just when it looked like the specially arranged People’s Sunday at Wimbledon might escape the battleship grey clouds and relentless rain that have cursed the 2004 Wimbledon Championships, the heavens opened, severely curtailing the opening day of the junior tournament.
The start of the boys and girls’ competitions at the All England Club had already been postponed from the scheduled beginning on Saturday, and now many players could be forced to play back-to-back matches through the week in order to catch up, particularly if the more pessimistic weather forecasts for later in the week are proved correct.
However, there was enough time for New Zealand’s William Ward to cause the first upset of the Championships by knocking out ninth-seeded Spaniard Pablo Andujar-Alba 26 62 64.
18-year-old Ward, one of two New Zealanders in the boys’ draw along with GD Jones, seemed steeped in the Southern Hemisphere tradition of grass-court play and made the most of his familiarity with the surface despite playing in his first Wimbledon. He lists grass and carpet as his favourite surfaces and perhaps may like the faster courts even more by the end of the coming week.
In the girls’ draw, Czech second seed Nicole Vaidisova might have wished she was training in the Florida sunshine once the poor weather set it but she was fortunate enough to have been scheduled on court early enough to get her first round match out of the way, and made the most of her stroke of luck by beating Pichittra Thongdach of Thailand 63 60.
In other results in the girls’ competition, the first seed to fall was No.12 seed Veronika Chvojkova from Czech Republic who went down in straight sets to Italy’s Giulia Gabba 62 76. 15th seeded Russian Irina Kotkina cruised through to round two with a 61 64 win over Slovak Magdalena Rybarikova and Australia’s Sophie Ferguson beat Britain’s Hannah Grady 67 64, 62. Another Russian, eighth-seed Alisa Kleybanova beat another Briton, wildcard Laura Fakhoury 61 61. Serbia Montegro’s Ana Ivanovic, seeded three, went through when her opponent, Sanja Ancic was forced to retire with injury.
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