Medvedev and Dimitrov dominate early matches at Wimbledon

Wimbledon was once again bothered by rain on Wednesday, but in a couple of early matches, Grigor Dimitrov and Daniil Medvedev dominated their opponents. At least the rain didn’t stick around for too long, but some of Monday’s matches still need to be finished on Wednesday.

Grigor Dimitrov has often struggled with injuries in his career. When healthy and playing on hard courts or on grass, he is capable of playing great tennis. In 2017, the last time he won a tournament, he won four titles on hard courts. In 2014, Dimitrov won the Queen’s Club.

I bring this up because if Dimitrov can stay consistent and healthy, he is a dangerous player at Wimbledon. His Wednesday opponent, Sho Shimabukuro, learned that the hard way as Dimitrov won 6-1 6-2 6-1. Shimabukuro only got four games off of Dimitrov and was lucky to get that. Shimabukuro only won 44 percent of his first serves and was broken seven times.

Dimitrov and Medvedev dominate their first-round Wimbledon matches

Meanwhile, Dimitrov didn’t get broken and finished with 8 aces. That number of aces isn’t a lot for Dimitrov which would imply he can play even better. Not a good feeling for his future opponents.

Third-seeded Daniil Medvedev won in straight sets on Wednesday as well 7-5 6-4 6-3. Medvedev didn’t have it as easily as Dimitrov, however. Medvedev was broken twice and won 69 percent of his first serves. If he had played a better foe than Arthur Fery, Medvedev would likely have played more than three sets.

It helped Medvedev that he broke Fery six times and was by far the superior player on service returns, but for Medvedev to have any chance of winning Wimbledon, he must play a lot better. Still, to say Medvedev came close to losing to Fery would be a falsehood. If he played Fery in every match, Medvedev would be the Wimbledon champ and never drop a set.