 Photographer: Susan Mullane
Date: 03 Jul 2006 |  Photographer: Susan Mullane
Date: 03 Jul 2006 |  Photographer: Susan Mullane
Date: 03 Jul 2006 |  Photographer: Susan Mullane
Date: 03 Jul 2006 |  Photographer: Aquiles Duarte
Date: 05 Jan 2004 |  Photographer: Susan Mullane
Date: 03 Jul 2006 |
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| 03 Jul 2006 - Wimbledon - Eleanor Preston | |
| Young in hot form at Wimbledon |
Monday was a blisteringly hot day at SW19 but boys’ third seed Donald Young remained cool despite being pushed hard by Great Britain’s Iain Atkinson during their first round match. Young eased past the British wildcard 6-2, 7-6 to grab his first win of the season on grass.
“It was surprisingly hot for England,” said Young. “Luckily I’m used to practicing in Atlanta, where it gets to 100 degrees sometimes but you don’t expect those temperatures here. I heard that they had the rainiest May on record! I like it better when it’s nice and hot because it gives me a bit more pop on my serve and it helps my game all around.”
Young said he had been expecting a rough ride from Atkinson, who won the non-ITF sanctioned junior event on grass at the Stella Artois Championships and also performed well at Roehampton last week, so he should not have been surprised to be pushed so hard, particularly in the second set. “The first round is always the most difficult I think,” said Young, who plays Spanish southpaw Albert Ramos-Vinolas next. “I knew he could play well on grass so I knew that I had to play well from the start. In the first set I played well and I jumped all over him but he got much better in the second set. It was tough but sometimes that’s good. You always want to win easily but when you come through them, it’s always nice to win a tough one early in the tournament.
Top seed Thiemo DeBakker of the Netherlands wasted little time in snatching his place in the second round, dispatching Yan Bai of China 6-1, 6-0 to continue the rich vein of form he found by reaching the semi-finals of junior Roland Garros last month.
Victories for DeBakker and Young both bucked a trend for upsets on Monday. Jaak Poldma of Estonia took by far the biggest scalp with his 6-3, 3-6, 6-3 win over Martin Klizan of Slovakia but the list of fallen seeds grew hourly. Marcin Gawron of Poland sent fifth-seeded Brazilian Nicolas Santos out of the tournament with a 7-5, 6-4 victory. 11th seed Sho Aida of Japan, 13th seed Roman Jebavy of Czech Republic and ninth seed Ian Sergeyev of the Ukraine also made first round exits.
In the girls’ draw Katerina Vankova of Czech Republic, seeded 13, was bundled out in the first round by Ksenia Lykina of Russia 6-3, 6-7, 8-6; while Nicola Hofmanova of Austria beat Ksenia Milevskaya of Belarus – the tournament’s 11th seed – 2-6, 6-2, 6-4. The USA’s eighth seed Julia Cohen had to dig deep to get past Dominice Ripoll, eventually beating the German teenager 4-6, 6-3, 8-6.
Fourth seed and junior Australian Open runner-up Caroline Wozniacki was also detained longer than she would have liked given the hot, sticky conditions on court. Wozniacki, from Denmark, eventually got past Great Britain’s Georgie Stoop 5-7, 6-1, 6-2.
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