Sky Sports.com - Wimbledon 2008

Here we are on the first Friday and there is not one leading American left in the Men's singles, it beggars belief really.

Andy Roddick is the latest big seed to be discarded and it had to be another Serb who left with Roddick with only the US Open and the Davis Cup to play for this year. This particular slayer Serb was Janko Tipsarevic.

At least the British went home purring with content thanks to Andy Murray. His arrival in the last 32 was at the expense of Xavier Malisse, who is one of the best of the middle order brigade who form the very heart of men's pro tennis.

The shake of their match was entirely different from Murray's magician's masterpiece with Fabrice Santoro in the first round, which emphasises clearly his flexibility.

No fancy touches this time, it was all about solid workaday stuff, very efficient indeed. It leads him to Tommy Haas from Germany - a hard working, no thrills type of player that will no doubt prove a stern test.

Russians

The Russians, who are celebrating in numbers their first arrival at Wimbledon, produced another dramatic winner from their women's production line. She is - wait for it - Alla Kudryavtseva, the daughter of a former world champion in Greek-Roman wrestling and, judging by her quite exhilarating post-match press inquisition, an absolute certainty to be Russia's first woman president in a few years' time!

She beat my tip for the Championship, Maria Sharapova, which will teach me to brag about my Marat Safin moment earlier this week!

As for Britain's top ranked women's player, credit Anne Keothavong for not collapsing emotionally under the experience of facing the champion, Venus Williams, in all her power and, what's more, on the Centre Court.

New nations

Let's take a world view just for a moment. Have you noticed the swarm of players from the many states that have developed independence since the Berlin Wall came down?

Yesterday we saw Ernest Gulbis, who comes from Latvia, play quite beautifully to extend the number two seed Rafael Nadal. These 'new nations' are blossoming under the finance made available to them to produce Olympic and Davis Cup tennis players.

More and more are starting to stage their own professional tennis tournaments too. This missionary work is highly profitable for the development of the world game, but not too much attention seems to be paid to it by people like me.

Preview

Looking ahead to today's matches, Roger Federer is playing Marc Gicquel of France and I can't help but think that he is having the perfect run in. There he was in Halle last week, while most other players were playing tough matches at Queen's, which were taking a lot out of them - Novak Djokovic is a prime example.

But Federer has planned it very carefully and he will be very pleased with the way things are going, all the way knowing the big fight is ahead.

The second match on Centre Court is an intriguing one between Amelie Mauresmo and Serena Williams, and there are still a lot of questions surrounding Mauresmo. She has never been able to play well in France because she has found the pressure too much.

Nowadays she almost seems to be losing her conviction and ambition and if she is to have a bad Wimbledon, it wouldn't surprise me if she started to play a good deal less.

Back to the Russians and it was a Californian Russian - if you know what I mean - who played our beefy and handsome new boy, Chris Eaton, on No. 1 Court late in the day. The 20-year-old qualifier from Surrey's tale is predictably over, but he is richer by over £17,000 and we have all now read about East Horsley and counted his aces as well - believe me we will hear more about them both.

To watch Gerry's Day Two review on Sky Sports News click on the video icon on the right-hand side...