LONDON, 22 June 2004 — Senior citizens Martina Navratilova and Goran Ivanisevic turned back time to get their farewell Wimbledon performances off to winning starts yesterday as defending men’s champion Roger Federer was completely upstaged.
Nine-time champion Navratilova, 47 and playing her first singles match at the All England Club for ten years, brushed aside Colombia’s Catalina Castano, 23 years her junior, 6-0, 6-1.
Ivansevic, 32, meanwhile, who had been prevented by injury from returning to Wimbledon after his 2001 victory, also justified his wildcard by treating the Centre Court crowd to a flashback of his talents with a 6-3, 7-6 (7-4), 6-2 victory against Russian 31st seed Mikhail Youhzny.
Wildcard Navratilova, who made her debut here in 1973 and is now ranked at 700 in the world, took just 46 minutes to wrap up victory and book a second round match against Argentina’s Gisela Dulko, the player who beat her first round of the French Open.
“You can only play as well as your opponent does and she didn’t really push me until near the end. But it was a good match for me overall,” said Navratilova.
“She started playing better at the end and it was nice to be pushed, but she is a better clay-court player and I am a better grass court player.”
Ivanisevic, who will retire once his Wimbledon campaign comes to end, came into the tournament having won just two matches in nine tournaments this year.
“It was a great reception when I walked out and it was even better when I left,” said Ivanisevic.
“I’ve already won my Wimbledon and I just came here to say goodbye and have some fun. If I win a couple of matches all the better. But here I am starting to play my best tennis and I am about to retire!”
Federer and 2002 winner Lleyton Hewitt both eased through.
Top seed Federer enjoyed a 6-3, 6-3, 6-0 win over British wildcard Alex Bogdanovic and managed to avoid the humiliation suffered by his predecessor Hewitt this time last year.
Twelve months ago, the Australian arrived here as defending champion but slumped to an embarrassing first round defeat at the hands of Croatia’s Ivo Karlovic, who was ranked 203 at the time.
It was one of the biggest shocks in the history of the event with Hewitt becoming only the second men’s champion since the tournament’s inception in 1877 to bow out in the first round.
But there was never any sign of a repeat yesterday as Federer extended his winning run on grass to 18 matches with a majestic performance against the 295-ranked Bogdanovic.
Victory came after just 80 minutes on Centre Court and was completed between the rain showers.
Federer now faces Colombian qualifier Alejandro Falla for a place in the third round.
Hewitt, the 2002 winner, avoided a repeat of last year’s embarrassment when he brushed aside Austria’s Jurgen Melzer 6-2, 6-4, 6-2.
Melzer, the junior champion in 1999, never settled and sent down 28 unforced errors to Hewitt’s nine as he slumped to his third defeat of the year at the hands of the 23-year-old Australian.
“I thought about what happened last year a little bit going out there but you have to be positive. I only had one point to defend so I wasn’t worried about my ranking taking a dive,” said Hewitt.
Meanwhile, 13th-seeded Thai Paradorn Srichaphan, who warmed up in style winning the Nottingham grasscourt title at the weekend, saw his hopes dashed when he became the latest victim to be steamrolled by Karlovic.
The Croatian picked up where he left off in 2003 with a 3-6, 6-4, 6-4, 6-4 win in 2hr 12min.
America’s Venus Williams, twice a champion and a finalist in the last four years, breezed past Switzerland’s Marie-Gayanay Mikaelian 6-3, 6-0 on a frustrating opening day to the tournament which was punctuated by a series of rain delays.
Second seed Anastasia Myskina of Russia also made it through defeating Lubomira Kurhajcova of Slovakia 7-5, 6-1.
The French Open champion next plays the winner of the tie between Mervana Jugic-Salkic of Bosnia-Hercegovina and Aniko Kapros of Hungary.
Crowds and Players Cope Stoically With Wimbledon Showers
It is as much a fact of Wimbledon life as the exhorbitant price of strawberries and the swift demise of British players — as soon as the tournament gates open, so do the skies.
Players and spectators at yesterday’s opening day had to endure no fewer than four delays due to rain, one shower happening a mere 25 minutes after the event had started on outside courts at midday (1100 GMT).
With Wimbledon’s grass courts having to be covered the moment a shower begins lest they become treacherously slippery, such days place a heavy toll on players, who are forever trudging back to the dressing rooms for another wait.
By the end of this decade, the showpiece Centre Court will be equipped with a sliding roof, but other matches will remain at the mercy of the unpredictable June climate.
Yesterday, the many thousands of spectators enjoying — intermittently — the opening day’s play remained stoic.
Sylvia Pope and her sister Catherine Esp, both from Swansea in the south of Wales, had abandoned live tennis altogether by mid-afternoon to sit on a patch of grass and watch the tournament on a specially-erected giant television screen.
Blair Scott, a 20-year-old from Sydney, whose allegiance was plain from his ensemble of a huge Australian flag topped with a similarly emblazoned hat, had an even better idea on coping with the rain — to simply not notice it.
“It didn’t really affect us that much,” he said.
In another example of the hardships readily faced by Wimbledon spectators, Scott and his friends secured their Court One tickets by camping overnight outside the tournament gates, beginning the epic wait around Sunday lunchtime.
“It was a bit cold,” he admitted.
In fact the only factor which did draw some complaints yesterday was unconnected to tennis.
Some spectators said they were annoyed about the Wimbledon organizers’ decision not to show the England football team’s crunch Euro 2004 tie against Croatia last night on any of the event’s public screens.
The reason for this was firstly public safety, and also because tennis had to come first, the organizers said in a statement.
However teenagers Rich and Dean, clad in England football shirts and carrying a vast English flag, were disappointed that their day of tennis would not be capped by watching Euro 2004.
“We did sort of hope they’d be showing it, but we’ve been told that they won’t,” said Rich, who at 16 was too young even to escape to a bar to see the tie.
“Because we’re wearing the shirts, people keep on asking us where they can watch it — there doesn’t seem to be anywhere.”
