Wimbledon 2012 Day 4: S Williams v Czink

As the Journalism School is IN Wimbledon (handy) I parked up at a sneaky little place for a £5 (£10 cheaper than at Morden) and decided that because SURELY I would be home quite early there was no issue.

Class finished at 12 so I legged it to Wimbledon to get the bus service, chatting to a couple of Americans from Florida (apparently just around the block from where the Williams family live).

I headed straight for the gate, and was in centre just before play got underway.  That has to be some kind of landspeed record!

Serena's first round match seemed a touch nervy, so it would be interesting to see how quickly she got into her stride.

She started pretty well!  two aces and held to love!

However, Czink showed early on that she was capable of sending balls back with every bit as much pace as they were coming over the net!

For all that ball striking, a decent rally which went Williams' way seemed to sap Czink and the first set got away from her quite fast.

I was trying to live tweet with a 30 second delay from  Centre but the reception was completely bobbins.
But I finally got a tweet out to let people know that Williams had snaffled the first set in 20 mins.  Introducing Tennis Panorama's audience to the word snaffled seemed to be a big hit!!!

One of the best things about being up in the gods is that quite often you are sat with REAL tennis fans and I was sat next to guy who knew his stuff.

Set 2 and again Czink was holding her own - the crowd certainly seemed to be appreciating her attacking play - handling the Williams pace and really going for her shots.
However - with going for shots comes a breakdown at times with her range.

Where Serena was really hurting Czink was at the net and even when she did come in to leave Williams stranded with a backhand volley it was more of a punt than a targetted shot.
Williams possibly started to get a little more edgy and nervous as it became clear that Czink had settled into a bit of a groove, getting herself on the end of Williams' serves.

Up until this point Serena had been quite quiet but at 30-love up on Czink's serve at 4/4 we got a grunt of effort and fist pump, as she took the break to be serving for the set.

Williams took her time coming out, and in Williams' style held to love - we were going to get Andy out pretty darn quickly!