LONDON (AFP) - The rain was in charge on Day 2 of Wimbledon. It started to pour about an hour into the first wave of matches Tuesday and just didn’t stop, and outside play was eventually suspended for the rest of the day.
The only matches that were played as normal were those on the two covered courts.
Those courts are where the top players typically have their matches, but since it’s Round 1, the competition wasn’t exactly even. But the crowd still got to see some of the game’s best players in action, even if the action wasn’t the non-stop tennis thrill ride they’d been hoping for.
Carlos Alcaraz, the No. 1 seed, looks 100% ready to make a deep run at Wimbledon. He’s a joyful player, but he was serious and focused against Jeremy Chardy, despite Chardy being ranked No. 542 in the world.
Alcaraz wasted no time setting the pace, leaving Chardy in the dust pretty quickly in the first two sets (and leaving the crowd wishing for a more competitive match).
Alcaraz did encounter some trouble in the third set when Chardy finally got comfortable and put up a fight, tying the score 5-5. But Alcaraz didn’t panic and won the final two games of the set, ending his 6-0, 6-2, 7-5 win with an emphatic ace.
Andy Murray’s utter demolition of Ryan Peniston was one of those matches where you felt bad for the other guy.
Peniston, ranked No. 267 in the world, was every bit The Other Guy. Even though he represents the UK like Murray, he didn’t get much more than pity cheers from the crowd.
The kind of cheers you hear when the crowd wants it to be a competitive match because they’ve just realized they shelled out a lot of money to see Murray steamroll his opponent in about two hours.
That’s (essentially) what Murray did, taking care of business against Peniston with a 6-3, 6-0, 6-1 win in two hours and one minute. Murray’s good on grass, (he’s won Wimbledon twice, most recently in 2016), but it was surprising to see him so completely and utterly dominant.
Murray’s not seeded and is currently ranked No. 40 in the world, but if he can keep up the pace and precision he showed against Peniston, he will be extremely dangerous over the next few weeks.