TENNIS: Wimbledon first Saturday
Jul. 8th, 2018 09:11 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
feather_ghyllI started off with Del Potro vs. the leg bandage, I mean Paire on, but I only really started paying attention when we shifted to Centre Court. This was the first time I’d seen Nadal playing at Wimbledon properly this year.
My first reaction when I saw De Minour was that he was a boy sent to play against a man. It turns out the Australian is 19 (Nadal’s age when he made the world sit up and notice…when he won the French, but as we are constantly reminded, he, Federer and Djokovic are remarkable). It was an attractive match, full of fun rallies, although De Minour couldn’t cope with Nadal’s intensity, smart tennis and didn’t have quite the same firepower in his armoury. They say he’s going to be a star; we’ll see.
Anyway, a game away from Nadal’s inevitable victory (again in three sets), they decided to switch to Halep facing Tsieh (was she the one who gave Konta trouble in the past?) I’d heard the broad strokes of the score as the match went on, but at this point the match was at 5-5 in the third, Halep had been up 5-2 and had had at least one match point. The commentators were praising Tsieh’s defence, and there was at least one point that she won when by the normal flow of the game, she had no right to. Two games later, and she’d won a match against the world no. 1, the no. 1 seed and the French Open champion. She was staggered, but delighted, and seemed deserving.
I should have stayed with Kerber, the last top 10 seed standing (! WOMEN’S TENNIS!) but they had Inverdale ‘commentating’, and I couldn’t cope with that, especially as this was at the same time as the England match was on and he would be ‘commentating’ while watching the latter. So I switched to Zverev vs Gulbis, although it was more background noise as I got on with other stuff (not football-related) – and it turned out that wunderkid Zverev fell at that hurdle, so his big slam breakthrough continues to elude him, while DelPo got through.
The match I wanted to pay attention to was Edmund vs Djokovic, a tester for young Edmund and a test of where Djokovic was at. Edmund played aggressively, and his forehand really is a weapon. He got to use it, winning baseline rallies and coming in. Djokovic didn’t seem to have an answer, and Edmund bagged the first set. However febrile the atmosphere was, Edmund had done this with a poor percentage of first serves in, which suggested that it was more about where Djokovic’s head or game was at.
Midway through the second set, Djokovic the grand slam champion began reasserting himself, Edmund’s serve problems told, and he ran out of answers. It did seem weird that Djokovic was not reading the crowd and dealing with it appropriately. Edmund played better in the fourth, having been subdued in the second and third sets, but was shown not to be up to Djokovic’s class (yet? On grass? There was much promise.) However, he did okay in his first Wimbledon dealing with the weight of Anglo-British expectation.
As for Djokovic, has it really all come back together for him? Other players in future rounds will test that.
Kerber is still standing, Ostapenko made it through (a player casual or Wimbledon-only fans may have heard of) and I’m delighted that the young and talented Kasakstina is backing up her performance in the French. I presume Nishikori, two sets up, beat Kyrigos, nipping the ‘he’s playing well, he’s aceing a lot’ narrative in the bud.
So, the coming of the next gen seemed arrested on the men’s side, while the women (Serena aside) are in even greater churn than ever, which could be a great opportunity for someone. It will be interesting to see how Kerber copes with the return of the pressure of expectations on her shoulders, after failing to consolidate her successes last year.
My first reaction when I saw De Minour was that he was a boy sent to play against a man. It turns out the Australian is 19 (Nadal’s age when he made the world sit up and notice…when he won the French, but as we are constantly reminded, he, Federer and Djokovic are remarkable). It was an attractive match, full of fun rallies, although De Minour couldn’t cope with Nadal’s intensity, smart tennis and didn’t have quite the same firepower in his armoury. They say he’s going to be a star; we’ll see.
Anyway, a game away from Nadal’s inevitable victory (again in three sets), they decided to switch to Halep facing Tsieh (was she the one who gave Konta trouble in the past?) I’d heard the broad strokes of the score as the match went on, but at this point the match was at 5-5 in the third, Halep had been up 5-2 and had had at least one match point. The commentators were praising Tsieh’s defence, and there was at least one point that she won when by the normal flow of the game, she had no right to. Two games later, and she’d won a match against the world no. 1, the no. 1 seed and the French Open champion. She was staggered, but delighted, and seemed deserving.
I should have stayed with Kerber, the last top 10 seed standing (! WOMEN’S TENNIS!) but they had Inverdale ‘commentating’, and I couldn’t cope with that, especially as this was at the same time as the England match was on and he would be ‘commentating’ while watching the latter. So I switched to Zverev vs Gulbis, although it was more background noise as I got on with other stuff (not football-related) – and it turned out that wunderkid Zverev fell at that hurdle, so his big slam breakthrough continues to elude him, while DelPo got through.
The match I wanted to pay attention to was Edmund vs Djokovic, a tester for young Edmund and a test of where Djokovic was at. Edmund played aggressively, and his forehand really is a weapon. He got to use it, winning baseline rallies and coming in. Djokovic didn’t seem to have an answer, and Edmund bagged the first set. However febrile the atmosphere was, Edmund had done this with a poor percentage of first serves in, which suggested that it was more about where Djokovic’s head or game was at.
Midway through the second set, Djokovic the grand slam champion began reasserting himself, Edmund’s serve problems told, and he ran out of answers. It did seem weird that Djokovic was not reading the crowd and dealing with it appropriately. Edmund played better in the fourth, having been subdued in the second and third sets, but was shown not to be up to Djokovic’s class (yet? On grass? There was much promise.) However, he did okay in his first Wimbledon dealing with the weight of Anglo-British expectation.
As for Djokovic, has it really all come back together for him? Other players in future rounds will test that.
Kerber is still standing, Ostapenko made it through (a player casual or Wimbledon-only fans may have heard of) and I’m delighted that the young and talented Kasakstina is backing up her performance in the French. I presume Nishikori, two sets up, beat Kyrigos, nipping the ‘he’s playing well, he’s aceing a lot’ narrative in the bud.
So, the coming of the next gen seemed arrested on the men’s side, while the women (Serena aside) are in even greater churn than ever, which could be a great opportunity for someone. It will be interesting to see how Kerber copes with the return of the pressure of expectations on her shoulders, after failing to consolidate her successes last year.
