 Photographer: Susan Mullane
Date: 05 Jul 2007 |  Photographer: Susan Mullane
Date: 05 Jul 2007 |  Photographer: Susan Mullane
Date: 05 Jul 2007 |  Photographer: Susan Mullane
Date: 05 Jul 2007 |  Photographer: Susan Mullane
Date: 05 Jul 2007 | |
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| 04 Jul 2007 - Wimbledon - Eleanor Preston |  Related Audio |
| British banish rainy day blues |
 An Interview with Daniel Cox (MP3 format)
 
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Improving weather at Wimbledon meant a wealth of junior matches completed on Wednesday and a largely good day for the British contingent at this year’s junior Wimbledon Championships. Dan Cox, Graeme Dyce and Daniel Smethurst all scored first round wins, with Smethurst causing one of the upsets of the tournament so far by knocking out American Austin Krajicek 6-7, 6-3, 11-9 thanks to a third set champions’ tiebreak.
“We’re all trying to push each other forward and I try to support them as well,” said Cox, who has been training at the British Lawn Tennis Association’s new National Tennis Centre at Roehampton, which is just down the road from Wimbledon. He believes that having a squad of peers to compete alongside has raised the standard amongst British juniors. “We’re all very friendly towards each other. It’s good because if the competition is good then you want to set high standards and try and reach them. If you’ve got good people alongside you then you want to be as good as them.”
Cox beat Cesar Ramirez of Mexico 7-5, 6-1 to seal his place in the second round of his junior home grand slam, Dyce was a 7-5, 6-4 winner over Daniel Lopez of Italy and another Briton, David Rice, beat Roberto Maytin of Venezuela 6-4, 7-5. Their training partner Dan Evans fell foul of the quick-fire champions’ tiebreak, which was brought in for all junior matches after relentless rain put pressure on schedulers to speed up matches. Evans lost the third set shootout against Australian qualifier Mark Verryth and succumbed 2-6, 7-6, 10-8.
Cox admitted that the rain had been a mental test for all the juniors, even ones like him who are used to the inclement British climate. “You’ve just got to be relaxed and just expect anything really. The weather we’ve been having is not ideal for the players. We’ve all been getting a bit bored and restless,” said Cox. “We’ve just been relaxing, trying to keep inside as much as we can and grab the odd hit here and there. It’s not really an advantage being British when you are playing though because the players from overseas play on grass as much as we do – we don’t play a lot on grass through the year. We all have equal opportunities.”
In the girls’ competition, British ninth seed Naomi Cavaday suffered a shock 6-3, 6-4 defeat to Oxana Kalashnikova of Georgia. Early favourite, seconded seeded Russian Anastasia Pivovarova continued her good form with a 6-1, 6-2 win over Lenka Jurikova of Slovakia. Top seed Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova of Russia will be in action on Thursday.
Related Articles
> Sweet sixteen for Pavlyuchenkova
> Severe rain delays disrupt junior Wimbledon
> Juniors play waiting game as rain ruins day one
> Junior Wimbledon Preview
> Wimbledon Junior Championships - Information and Acceptance Lists
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