The traditional summer hit of the tennis season is being played with rackets by the world's strongest tennis players these days in London - at the 2012 English Open, the fourth round of competition in men's and women's singles is taking place. This is the 126th Wimbledon tournament, the only one of the four Grand Slam events to take place on grass courts.
This year, one of the traditions of the tournament, established by the nature of the British Isles, was not violated - matches were postponed due to rain, which led to a tightening of the schedule of the courts of the All England Tennis Club. By the fourth round, the schedule returned to the previously set dates. At this moment, the names of several favorites are no longer listed in it, including the most important contender for victory in the men's tournament. Argentinean Rafael Nadal, two-time winner of the title of the winner of this tournament, who has consistently reached the final for the last five years, was eliminated in the second round, losing the way to Tomas Rosol in five games. Cech occupies the 100th line in the current rating of professional tennis players and has also already left the tournament, losing in the next round to the tennis player from the 25th position of this list - the German Philip Kohlschreiber.
In the women's tournament, one of the Williams sisters, Venus, did not play well in this tournament. She lost to our compatriot Elena Vesnina in the first round. Unfortunately, Elena didn't make it to the fourth round either. Another hope of the Russians, Maria Sharapova, the winner of the previous Grand Slam tournament this year and the first racket of the world in the current ranking, could not reach the quarterfinals, losing to German Sabina Lisicki.
The only remaining representative of Russia in the women's singles category is Maria Kirilenko. Having reached the quarterfinals, she repeated her highest achievement at the Grand Slam tournaments and will now fight for the advancement with the third racket of the world, Agnieszka Radwanska from Poland. And in the men's tournament, only one of our compatriots, Mikhail Youzhny, who occupies the 34th line in the ranking of tennis players, reached the same stage. He, too, will play in the quarterfinals with the third racket from the professional rating - in the men's list this position is occupied by the Swiss Roger Federer.
