Tennis

Roddick makes comfortable start at Wimbledon

(Reuters)
Updated: 2007-06-26 09:10

LONDON, June 25 - Third seed Andy Roddick started his Wimbledon campaign with a comfortable 6-1 7-5 7-6 first-round victory over fellow American Justin Gimelstob on Monday.

Roddick, runner-up at the grasscourt grand slam in 2004 and 2005, broke his opponent twice in the first set to speed to a 5-0 lead before Gimelstob pulled a game back on his own serve. Roddick then served for the set, capturing it with an ace.

Gimelstob displayed some energetic acrobatics to make the rest of the match more of a contest. In the second set it was only in the 11th game that Roddick was able to break his opponent, who was helped along by a couple of lucky netcords.

The ninth game of the third set went to 10 deuces, with Gimelstob eventually holding his serve. Games went with serve in the third set until the tiebreak which Roddick, a former U.S. Open champion, sealed 7-3.

"It feels like that one game in the third set took longer than the rest of the match," Roddick told a news conference.

"It was a weird match because I felt the best set I played was the toughest one. I started to kind of find my rhythm on my returns a little bit in the third set and didn't have a lot to show for it there for the majority of it."

Big-serving Roddick, who holds the service record of 155 mph (249 kph) and regularly managed more than 130 mph on Monday, hit 16 aces.

"I felt like it was a pretty good serving day, especially considering the conditions were a little bit cold, a little bit unpredictable," he said.

The match featured the first challenge using the Hawkeye electronic line-calling device at Wimbledon, with Gimelstob asking for a video replay in the second set. The big-screen replay showed his challenge was incorrect.