Roddick makes an early exit – Is it that much of a surprise?

Andy Roddick went out in the second round of Wimbledon yesterday which isn’t a big shock in my opinion. His preparation for the tournament wasn’t brilliant as he had only played two competitive matches since a back injury sustained on May 5th ruled him out of Hamburg and the French Open.

As a result he simply wasn’t match tight against a very talented opponent. As I said in my predicition Tipsarevic was going to cause him trouble as the Serb is a better player from the back of the court.

It seems strange when people act like this result was an un-thinkable shock. Tipsarevic has had a string of good results this year after his five setter against Federer in the Australian Open which seemed to make him believe he could be one of the best players in the world.

This year Tipsarevic has beaten Fernando Verdasco, James Blake, Mikahil Youzhny and Paul Henri Matheiu which tells everyone he is some player.

It is fair enough to say Roddick was not at his best today but the Serb took advantage of this and got the job done.

Novak Djokovic’ loss to Marat Safin on the other hand is a bit more of a surprise. Again similar to Roddick’s case, you could say Djokovic wasn’t at his best but Safin didn’t give him a chance to play and get into his stride.

Safin put pressure on the Serb constantly and instead of responding in his typical impressive fashion, Djokovic on this occasion wilted under the barrage of power and precision from the strong Russian. It was like watching a heavy-weight versus a light-weight.

Djokovic couldn’t come up with any answers during the match but he did reveal he was mentally tired after the match. Nadal has won three tournaments in a row and is currently on a 19 match winning streak. Shouldn’t he be playing a poor match soon then where he does two double faults to lose the match? I’d put my bank on the Spaniard not losing as easily as this during Wimbledon.

I’m afraid Djokovic just didn’t show up for this match and was outclassed by a past master who may just have re-found that winning feeling.

I must add that James Ward, the British Number 8 who blogs for this website won a set off Marat Safin at Queens, something Djokovic could not do!