It’s a day for the roofless and ruthless

If it’s disarming to see Centre Court freshly roofless, open like a cereal bowl and shorn of intimacy, it’s comforting to spot other reminders that it’s still Wimbledon.

Roger Federer turns up both dressed in elegant garb for a second straight year and victorious for a 29th straight match.

Desperate Britons still scream “C’mon Tim!” at some long-winded match that forages well into the dusk, as their Tim Henman continues to play uphill tennis at 32, present for a 14th straight Wimbledon.

Serena Williams returns to stir up victory and bewilderment.

Rain still giggles at the schedule.

All the trappings remain, even if Centre Court looks ordinary, lacking its old, partial roof as it morphs toward a retractable roof come 2009, and sporting two large video screens that show how many line-call challenges each player has left under the new Hawk-Eye ball-tracking system.

“I think most people would agree it’s not as aesthetically pleasing as it normally is,” Andy Roddick, seeded No. 3, said. “It just looks weird ‘cause, I mean, we’ve all grown to be kind of accustomed to the roof. It just doesn’t look like the Wimbledon Centre Court right now. But it’s kind of a necessary evil. You take it as it is.”

Roddick’s first-round win over Justin Gimelstob featured both a wager between the two over how many times the noted diver Gimelstob would dive -- he came in under the over-under of eight -- and the first-ever Hawk-Eye challenge at Wimbledon, courtesy Gimelstob.

“So he has the first miss with Hawk-Eye in Wimbledon history as well,” Roddick said after his 6-1, 7-5, 7-6 (3) victory.

With all the strangeness, at least the defending men’s champion did walk out first per tradition Monday after a rain delay that’s also per tradition, and at least that champion did remain Federer, proof this must be Wimbledon. Back came his cream-colored jacket from 2006, plus a cream-colored vest and cream-colored slacks, in which he warmed up for his 6-3, 6-2, 6-4 win over Teimuraz Gabashvili, a Russian in the second grass-court match of his 22-year lifetime.

The four-time champion reflected on his first visit in 1999.

“I was very nervous going into my junior first round,” Federer said. “I remember after the warmup I was going up to the umpire telling him, I think the net is too high, because I was so nervous. I felt like the net was double the height. He actually went down and checked it. The net was, of course, accurate, so I kept on playing and won my match.”

He won that tournament as well, plus the title the last four years in a row to get him four-fifths of the way down the lightly traveled road to Bjorn Borg.

Now Federer is in his living room, his parents watching from the royal box by royal invitation.

“Every time you come back here and play at Wimbledon on Centre Court, you warm up, all you hear is the sound of the ball, your movement, your breathing, because people are so quiet,” Federer said. “They really only applaud for good shots. They never applaud for unforced errors.”

They never applaud for unforced errors unless it’s going on 9 p.m. and Henman’s playing a five-set match with Carlos Moya in Big Ten football weather with the smattering of royals nestled under green-and-purple blankets.

In that case, they applaud even Moya’s double faults.

They’re clinging to their last famous glimmer, Henman, because Andy Murray, the defending quarterfinalist from Scotland who had been seeded eighth, withdrew because of a wrist injury. Naomi Cavaday, 18, a qualifier from Kent ranked No. 233, endangered No. 9 Martina Hingis before losing, 6-7 (1), 7-5, 6-0.

All that remained among top-100 players in the age-old tale of Brit angst was Henman, the four-time semifinalist waning at No. 78, and his capacity to dredge both Brit shrieks and Brit groans, the latter coming after he lost each of his four match points in the shrieking 5-4 game of the fifth set.

Then darkness left it undecided at 5-5, which rang familiar, as did some American strife that’s normal anymore. The 19-year-old hope from Thousand Oaks, Sam Querrey, went out pronto to Colombian qualifier Alejandro Falla, 7-6 (5), 6-1, 6-4. Former U.S. Open semifinalist Robby Ginepri, ranked 45th, got a rugged draw and lost to No. 6 Fernando Gonzalez, 3-6, 7-6 (4), 6-2, 6-2.

Later in the day, Serena Williams faced a mid-match rain delay, a 5-4 first-set deficit and a litany of questions about a hamstring injury her father had brought up in some TV interviews.

“I don’t think it’s a pulled hamstring, it’s just a tight hamstring,” the betting favorite said after winning the last nine games of the match to beat Spaniard Lourdes Dominguez Lino, 7-5, 6-0.

After touting her peak physical form on Saturday, Williams said Monday of the hamstring, “When did it occur? I had it a while.... It just kind of happened. Like one day, I woke up and I was stiff. ‘Oh, my God, I’m getting old.’ ”

She also smiled and said, “I’m going to have to talk to my dad.”

That, too, seemed familiar.

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At a glance

After Day 1 at Wimbledon:

* Notable: The only men’s or women’s seeded loser on the first day was No. 27 Philipp Kohlschreiber of Germany.

FEATURED MATCHES

* Jamea Jackson vs. Amelie Mauresmo (4), France.

* Mardy Fish vs. Rafael Nadal (2), Spain.

* James Blake (9) vs. Igor Andreev, Russia.

* Chan Yung-Jan, Taiwan, vs. Maria Sharapova (2), Russia.

* Vince Spadea vs. Ivan Ljubicic (15), Croatia.

* Alla Kudryavtseva, Russia, vs. Venus Williams (23).