Wimbledon 2011: What to watch on day 3 from London
Busted Racquet previews the first Wednesday of Wimbledon.
• Compared to 40-year-old Kimiko Date-Krumm, Venus Williams is practically a spring chicken. Two of the oldest players in the women's draw meet on the opening match on Centre Court on Wednesday, as Date Krumm attempts to gain the biggest win of her comeback against the 31-year-old, five-time champion. On Monday, Date-Krumm because the second-oldest woman to ever win a match at Wimbledon. It was her first victory at the event since 1996, the year before Venus made her debut at the All England Club. As WTA stats guru Kevin Fischer points out, this is the first time in 1,236 combined matches that Date-Krumm and Williams will face off.
• Ryan Sweeting will play Rafael Nadal on the main show court in the second round of a major for the second time this year. It didn't go too well for the 23-year old American in Melbourne; he won just four games against Rafa in January. Two months later at Indian Wells, Sweeting also took four games, albeit in a shorter best-of-three match.
• Andy Roddick will cap an All-American day on Centre Court when he plays Romanian Victor Hanescu in the final match of the afternoon. The other Andy, Andy Murray, brings his talents to Court 1 against German Tobias Kamke.
• American Bethanie Mattek-Sands makes her 2011 Wimbledon debut in the opening match on Court 14. Her match against Japan's Misaka Doi was one of 13 women's contests that were bumped from the busy Tuesday schedule. Though she's been coy about her plans, expect Mattek-Sands to walk onto the court wearing something of note; she's said that Lady Gaga's designer, Alex Noble, made something for her Wimbledon entrance.
• Doubles begins on Wednesday. Moving on ...
• Other top seeds in action include Tomas Berdych, Vera Zvonareva, Juan Martin Del Potro and Gael Monfils.
Matches to watch: Elena Vesnina vs. Zvonareva (2), Gilles Muller vs. Milos Raonic (31)
Upset alert: Alexandra Dulgheru over Svetlana Kuznetsova (12)
