Day 3 at South West London, Wimbledon!

While many will have enjoyed Tim Henman's victory in five sets (thanks mainly to an all too Tim-like wobble in the fourth set) yesterday over the Swede Soderling, one of the matches of the day was that between the German Alexander Waske and the qualifier Italian Stefano Galvani. It ended at 16 to 14 in the fifth in favour of the Italian, bringing a pause to the late flowering of the German's career.

The loss of the first day's play of this year's Wimbledon Championships has meant that many first round matches are still to be played today. One of those on court for the first time this year was the defending ladies champion, Venus Williams. She may have only taken part in four tournaments this year, but memories of her three titles here and her enhanced seeding (6 against her world ranking of 12) should give her the motivation to progress this year at the All England Club. Certainly her first opponent (on Centre) and fellow American, Bethanie Mattek, barely provided a warm up, and was dispatched in 51 minutes.

The Argentinian and third men's seed Nalbandian and the popular Belgian Kim Clijsters follow Venus onto Centre, but the main draw later in the afternoon will be Tim Henman's attempt to find some way round the world number one and defending champion Roger Federer. Short of popping something in Federer's water dispenser, you feel that this year could see one of the briefest of Tim's spells in the tournament. Still, Roger is professing wariness - at least in public - and this may not be mere politeness since Tim is one of the small minority of players on tour whose face to face records against Federer show more victories than defeats. England may expect, but perhaps for once not too much, and that in itself could help Tim's cause.

Martin Lee of Britain has put in an impressive display to oust the Belgian Dick Norman. Others through, in the ladies draw, are Sharapova and Mauresmo - both in short order. The latter's 39 minutes on court can hardly assist the claims for equal prize money for the ladies game here.

The match that has attracted my attention on this third afternoon is between the former finalist Andy Roddick and the young Serbian Janko Tispsarevic, who took the first set on a tie-break and has flung himself after the Roddick serve with guts and gusto. There has been a huge amount of heart and enormous energy from the Serb who fought hard to try to recover from being a break down to Roddick in the second set. He is definitely one to watch for the future, whether he beats Roddick or not, and Roddick will be grateful for the rigorous workout he has been given - if that is all it proves to be! This is possibly the match so far of the tournament, with Janko thinking his way carefully around the court and scampering to catch Andy's shots. Wonderful matchplay and dogged perserverance on both sides.

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John Milverton (Guest Writer)