Day 1: Hewitt loses marathon in his last Wimbledon

Lleyton Hewitt fell to Jarkko Nieminen in a 4-hour battle.
2013 photo by Paul Bauman

   Match of the day -- In the last Wimbledon for both players, Lleyton Hewitt "Packard" of Australia lost to Jarkko "LeRoy" Nieminen of Finland 3-6, 6-3, 4-6, 6-0, 11-9 in 4 hours. Hewitt, the 2002 champion, turned 34 on Feb. 24. He will play doubles with 19-year-old countryman Thanasi Kokkinakis. Nieminen will celebrate his 34th birthday on July 23. 
   Upset of the day -- Latvian wild card Jelena Ostapenko, last year's junior girls singles champion, ousted No. 9 Carla "Bruni" Suarez Navarro of Spain 6-2, 6-0 in 52 minutes. 
   Notable -- Australian qualifier John Millman -- a quarterfinalist in Napa, semifinalist in Sacramento and runner-up in Tiburon on the three-week Northern California Challenger swing last fall -- surprised 19th-seeded Tommy "Holy" Robredo 6-2, 6-3, 6-4. It was the 26-year-old Millman's first singles main-draw victory in a Grand Slam tournament and his first main-draw match in a Slam other than the Australian Open. See my 2014 profile of Millman here.
   Men's seeded winners -- No. 1 Novak "It's No" Djokovic, No. 4 Stan "The Man" Wawrinka, No. 5 "Special" Kei Nishikori, No. 7 Milos "And Otis" Raonic, No. 9 Marin "County" Cilic, No. 11 Grigor "Mortis"  Dimitrov, No. 14 Kevin Anderson "Cooper," No. 16 David "Gerry" Goffin, No. 17 John "Wayne" Isner, No. 21 Richard "Don't Blow A" Gasquet, No. 24 Leonardo "Da Vinci" Mayer, No. 26 Nick "I'm Just" Kyrgios, No. 27 Bernard "A." Tomic, No. 32 Dominic "Home" Thiem.  
   Men's seeded losers -- No. 19 Robredo, No. 28 Pablo "Cruise" Cuevas.
   Women's seeded winners -- No. 1 Serena "Vanessa" Williams, No. 4 Maria "Shriver" Sharapova, No. 6 "I Love" Lucie Safarova, No. 7 Ana "Karenina" Ivanovic, No. 11 "North" Karolina Pliskova, No. 14 Andrea Petkovic "Park," No. 16 Venus "And Mars" Williams, No. 19 Sara "No Runs, No Hits, No" Errani, No. 22 Samantha "Stephens" Stosur, No. 23 Victoria "Station" Azarenka, No. 29 Irina-Camelia "Ain't Too Proud To" Begu, No. 30 Belinda "Johnny" Bencic. 
   Women's seeded losers -- No. 9 Navarro, No. 24 Flavia "Adriano" Pennetta, No. 27 Barbora "Streisand" Strycova.
   Stars and stripes -- U.S. women went 6-6 (including one all-American match), and the men went 3-1. Sloane "Ranger" Stephens and wild card Denis "The Menace" Kudla knocked off low seeds, and qualifier Bethanie Mattek-Sands "Of Time" eliminated French Open quarterfinalist Alison "Moving" Van Uytvanck.
   Alison "Take A" Riske almost pulled off a major upset, falling to No. 6 seed and French Open runner-up Safarova 3-6, 7-5, 6-3. Riske served for the match at 5-4 in the second set.
   Two young American women, Shelby "Ginger" Rogers and Madison "Avenue" Brengle, were shut out. Petkovic annihilated Rogers, 22, in 38 minutes, and Venus Williams drubbed Brengle, 25, in 41 minutes.
   Fast fact -- Tommy "White" Haas became the oldest winner of a men's singles match at Wimbledon since Jimmy "Carter" Connors was 38 in 1991. Haas, a 37-year-old German, beat Serbia's Dusan Lajovic, playing one day before his 25th birthday, 6-2, 6-3, 4-6, 6-2.
   Northern California connection -- Nicole "Kidman" Gibbs, a two-time NCAA singles champion from Stanford, lost to Lesia Tsurenko of Ukraine 6-3, 6-3. Gibbs, 22, made her Wimbledon main-draw debut.
   Quote -- Hewitt on Wimbledon: "For me, it's the home of tennis. I don't get the same feeling walking into any other grounds in the world -- no other tennis court, no other complex -- than I do here. I do get goosebumps walking into this place."
   Today's top matches (beginning at 5 a.m. PDT on ESPN) -- Centre Court: Petra "-Fied Forest" Kvitova (2) vs. Kiki "Dee" Bertens, Roger Federer "Express" (2) vs. Damir Dzumhur, Andy "Bill" Murray (3) vs. Mikhail "Gorbachev" Kukushkin.
   Court 1: "San" Rafael Nadal (10) vs. Thomaz "John" Bellucci, Simona "I Need" Halep (3) vs. Jana "Novotna" Cepelova, Tomas "Free As A" Berdych (6) vs. Jeremy "Don't Be" Chardy.

King, Shvedova head to Istanbul on high note

   Vania King and Yaroslava Shvedova know how to peak for big events.
   The second seeds, preparing for next week's TEB BNP Paribas WTA Championships in Istanbul, rallied to beat fourth-seeded Anastasia Rodionova and Galina Voskoboeva 7-6 (3), 6-3 Saturday for the doubles title at the $721,000 Kremlin Cup in Moscow.
   King and Shvedova saved two set points at 5-6 in the first set and overcame a 3-1 deficit in the second set to win their second WTA doubles title of the year and fourth since becoming partners in June 2010.
  King and Shvedova captured their first two titles in Grand Slam tournaments: Wimbledon and the U.S. Open last year. They also won the Cincinnati crown in their last tournament before this year's U.S. Open, in which they lost a three-set heartbreaker to Liezel Huber and Lisa Raymond in the final.
  "I guess Slava and I bloom late in the season," King, a member of the Sacramento Capitals living in Boynton Beach, Fla., said on the WTA's Web site. "It was a high level from all four players (Saturday). We played consistently and stepped it up on the big points. They played well. Maybe their level dropped in the second set, but overall I think we all played a really good match. I guess we were just a bit luckier on the big points.
   "We didn't know our schedule for the last few weeks, but I'm really glad we came to Moscow. We had a great week for practice and for matches, and it was a great experience to play here to get ready for Istanbul."
   All four doubles finalists except King were born in Russia but play for other countries. Shvedova and Voskoboeva hail from Moscow but compete for Kazakhstan. Rodionova, a native of Tambov (300 miles southeast of Moscow) and a former Capital, became an Australian citizen in 2009.
   Blake falls -- James Blake, the runner-up in the $100,000 Sacramento Challenger two weeks ago, lost to Jarkko Nieminen 7-6 (5), 5-7, 6-2 in the semifinals of the $825,000 Stockholm Open.
   After losing his first six matches against Blake, Nieminen has won the last two, both in Stockholm. Blake, a 31-year-old Tampa, Fla., resident, was bidding for his third Stockholm crown after beating Paradorn Srichaphan of Thailand in the 2005 final and Nieminen in the 2006 title match.
   Nieminen, a 30-year-old Finn, will face top-seeded Gael Monfils, a Frenchman who beat sixth-seeded Milos Raonic of Canada 6-7 (6), 6-4, 6-3.
   Monfils and Raonic were scheduled to meet in the San Jose semifinals in February, but Monfils defaulted with a left wrist injury. Raonic, who will turn 21 in December, went on to beat defending champion Fernando Verdasco of Spain for his first ATP World Tour title.
   The unseeded Nieminen, who reached a career-high No. 13 in the world in 2006, seeks his first Stockholm title in his third appearance in the final. He fell to Sjeng Schalken of the Netherlands 10 years ago in addition to Blake five years ago.
   Nieminen is 1-9 in ATP World Tour finals, having beaten Mario Ancic of Croatia for the 2006 Auckland title.
   Lu tops Wang for title -- Top-seeded Yen-Hsun Lu, the runner-up in the 2007 Sacramento Challenger, defeated unseeded Jimmy Wang, a Folsom resident, 7-5, 6-3 in an all-Taiwanese final at the $100,000 Samsung Securities Cup in Seoul, South Korea.
   Wang, a former top-100 player who trains with Dmitry Tursunov at the Gorin Tennis Academy in Granite Bay, returned to action last November after missing three years because of two operations on his right (playing) wrist. He reached the semifinals of the $15,000 Sacramento Futures in June.