Wimbledon: Nieminen sets up royal encounter with Andy Murray

Centre Court appearance beckons on Thursday

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Finland's tennis no.1 Jarkko Nieminen overcame Stefan Koubek of Austria in four sets on Tuesday to progress into the second round at Wimbledon and to set up a meeting with tournament fourth-seed Andy Murray on Thursday.
      Nieminen, currently ranked 67th on the ATP lists, could have beaten the Austrian (ATP-121) in straight sets as he served for the match at 5-3 in the third, but managed at this point to lose his service twice in succession and Koubek willingly took the set 7-5.
      The 28-year-old Finn recovered from the blip, however, and eventually emerged a fairly comfortable winner 6-4, 7-6, 5-7, 6-2 in just over two and a half hours.
     
The reward of a match against Scot Andy Murray carries with it certain additional responsibilities on this occasion.
      Naturally since Murray is the last remaining British hope in either the men's or women's singles, the encounter will be played on Wimbledon's fabled Centre Court, and in all probability the audience will include Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, who is making her first visit to the tournament since her Silver Jubilee year in 1977.
      The Queen is rather better known as a devoted fan of and an expert on horse racing, but her presence at courtside will oblige the players to restore an old Wimbledon tradition of bowing (or courtseying in the case of the ladies) towards the Royal Box before and after the game.
     
Nieminen has noted that this piece of protocol is not likely to be the most arduous endeavour of the afternoon's programme, and it is certainly true that he will have his hands full dealing with Andy Murray and what will probably be a very partisan crowd.
      This is not Nieminen's first appearance on Centre Court, as he went down in five sets to Tim Henman there in 2005.
      It is also not his first encounter with Murray. The two have played each other twice before on a hardcourt surface and Murray has emerged the winner both times.
      The 23-year-old Scot will be the favourite on Thursday, too, but it will be interesting at least to see how Nieminen's new game, developed under German coach Jan de Witt, has improved his service.
     
The downside of things is that it would be a huge understatement to say Nieminen "does not have a particularly good record" when playing against top-ten players: he badly needs a few more scalps of the calibre of Murray if he is to shrug off the "journeyman pro" label he has had for a few years.
      At one point Nieminen was ranked 13th in the world, but injuries last year set him back considerably and he has of late found himself all too often facing big-name seeded players in the early rounds of tournaments.
      Most recently this happened on grass in Halle in Germany, where he faced the then world No.1 Roger Federer in the first round, and he also had to meet world No.6 Andy Roddick in the opening round at Roland Garros in France in May.
      The left-hander lost both those matches, although in the latter case he gave Roddick something of a fright over five sets.
     
Before he meets Murray in the singles, Nieminen and his German partner Michael Kohlmann have a first-round match in the men's doubles today against the Polish pairing of Mariusz Fyrstenberg and Marcin Matkowski, the sixth seeds in the tournament.
      Nieminen and Kohlmann gelled well together at the Australian Open this year, making it through to the semi-finals before going down to the world No.1 pair of Bob and Mike Bryan from the United States.
     


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Nieminen loses to Andy Roddick in five sets at Roland Garros (26.5.2010)

Links:
  Wimbledon
  ATP: Jarkko Nieminen
  Jarkko Nieminen blog and website

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