TENNIS INSIDE OUT
Alexander ZverevAngelique KerberBenoit PaireBorna CoricCaroline WozniackiCoco GauffDanielle CollinsDominic ThiemFabio FogniniFelix Auger-AliassimeGael MonfilsGrigor DimitrovHeather WatsonJiri VeselyNaomi OsakaRafael NadalRoger FedererSloane StephensStan WawrinkaStefanos TsitsipasThomas FabbianoTIO Featured 2Tomas BerdychVasek PospisilVenus WilliamsYulia Putinseva

Wimbledon Day 1 — A Bit of #NextGen Wimblegeddon

Val and J.D.
Alexander Sascha Zverev and Stefanos Tsitsipas early exit Wimbledon 2019

Poor Sascha! Poor Stefanos! We’ll get to the personal Wimbledon trials of these two blonde babes shortly, but first can we talk about these press room mug shots? Sascha looks like he’s gotten busted for taking Daddy’s car joyriding and is facing a night in jail so he can be “taught a lesson.” Meanwhile, Stef looks like his wrong-side-of-the-tracks friend who’s fresh off yet another night of bloated binge-drinking and so totally talked innocent Sascha-bear into scandalous misdeeds.

This pre-Wimby Stef incident seems even more relevant now. I think Krasimir was onto something…. *eyedart*

NVM, MOVING ON….

My-my. Let’s begin at the beginning, with something that makes Val want to start a night of binge-drinking of her own….

Borna Coric, who over the last couple of years has been getting his sprightly legs to carry him nimbly across the grass courts, unfortunately had to bail on Wimby. With a Halle title to defend, he racked up some points in Stuttgart and looked well on his way to a rematch with Federer in the semis of Halle when he got taken out by a painful side/back injury.

As injuries go, it’s not the worst news. Wimby wasn’t his friend last year, so he has only a handful of points to defend compared to the upcoming hard court season. So, definitely a wise move to skip ahead and give himself more time to heal. Unfortunately, he seems intent on playing his home tourney in Croatia before the North American summer swing; we hope it won’t be too soon a return to the court. *fingers crossed*

Cougar Town, UK

In brighter news, we gotta take a moment to give it up to Wimby lead-up The Boodles for consistently delivering gorgeous men and thirsty cougar goodness every year. This time the recipient of well-deserved female attention was the boy-band king of the tour, Grigor Dimitrov. Sure, he’s not #NextGen-level bait anymore but he’s still young and precious enough to be boytoy material for these tipsy toffs. Huzzah.

Wrath of a Polish Princess

Above is one of our fave tweets, in response to our beloved Kerbs going down in straights to Plisky in the Eastbourne final — hell of a battle, though, and we would be totally interested in Kerber getting her revenge yet again at SW19. She is defending champ after all, and she opens up Center Court tomorrow.

ATP Dramaz

In ongoing ATP drama, player board members are deserting a sinking ship and Canadian Vasek Pospisil is continuing his crusade to call out problems with the sport.

Wimbledon Round 1

And now, on to the tennis. In what turned out to be a blissfully brilliant move, Val stayed up after an all-nighter of work and tuned in to the #Stanimal at 5am Central Standard time.

Stanley is still not quite as sure-footed on the grass as he is on other surfaces, but this was a well-done match for him. NO LULLS, which is impressive for an opening round especially. He cruised along with good serving and a wicked array of passing shots from every freakin’ corner of the court.

HOT DAMN. Considering the level of carnage at Wimbledon today in the first round, we here at Tennis Inside Out are definitely hoping Stan will carry his epic level of play throughout the tournament. The Big 3’s geriatric stranglehold on Slams is starting to get a bit oppressive, and if the kiddos don’t want to break up that OAP-party, we’re happy to let Stan’s searing BH take him to victory and a career Slam.

Hurdle numero uno: He’s got American Tree Opelka in his next round.

The jury is out on that turtleneck contraption, but if it’s working for him, we won’t argue!

#MERICA

Six men had to play first-on matches today, with nine ladies having to wake up early. It was a pretty good day for American women, with Madison Keys and Sonya Kenin snagging straight-set wins in two of those opening matches. Teenager Caty McNally wasn’t so lucky, but we can’t feel too bad because OMG HEV!!!

Currently ranked #73, Watson has taken some tough losses lately, seeming to get edged out often in 3-setters. It’s great for her to have a straight-sets win on Wimby grass, but oof, big test next as she faces #20 seed Anett Kontaveit.

In other American lady news, Madison Brengle took out up-and-comer Marketa Vondrousova and Danielle Collins played a FEISTY match against tricky contender Zarina Diyas. I am really starting to love those bellowy “COME ONS!” after important moments, and apparently those vocals carry…

*Insert laughing emoji here* YOU GO, GIRL!

Injuries Suck, Part 125,734…

Everyone knows about Juan Martin del Potro’s lingering bad luck and knee surgery, but you may not have seen this little bomb from longtime Top-10-er Tomas Berdych:

This makes us really grateful that David Ferrer, despite struggling with injuries of his own, got to do a final round on the tour before his retirement, gathering adoration and accolades all along the way. It’s a rare and beautiful thing when it works out that way.

While we’re on veteran faves on the tour, this popped up during Gael Monfils’ 5-set battle with French young’un Ugo Humbert… (!!!!)

There’s never any telling with Monfils, but ultimately this one ended in a retirement, giving a winning score of 6-7(6), 3-6, 6-4, 7-5, 3-0 (RET.) for Humbert.

The other strange retirement of the day came during the Wozniacki / Sorribes Tormo match. The Spaniard came out on fire, raced to a 4-0 lead, and then Wozza came fighting her way back, winning 5 games in a row. The Dane even got to triple set points when Sorribes Tormo retired, apparently with some sort of shoulder/back issue.

Then Came the Carnage

In a world where clicks are king, DRAMATIC responses to every match, particularly at the Slams, can go a bit overboard. Unfortunately, this relentless hyperbole over both wins and losses seem to be affecting some of the #NextGen crowd. After being anointed gods and goddesses after wins at a young age, every loss is now scrutinized for signs of their impending doom, and the players seem to be feeling doomed themselves.

Going out to #39 Putinseva at Wimbledon kicked off major dramaz, but let’s not get carried away. Poots can be a fiery demon of an opponent, and she’s now beaten Osaka three times in a row–in straights on hard court last year, and in straights on Birmingham grass just last month. Sometimes bad match-ups happen to good players. No need to pull the ripcord on Naomi’s career just yet.

Same with Jiri Vesely. Val recently checked out his Wimby results because he stood in the way of American fave Tommy Paul getting to the main draw. Turns out Vesely likes his Wimbledon grass. He got to the R16 last year and in ’16, losing to Rafa and a crazy-long 5-setter to Berdych respectively. In 2017 he lost to Fabio in the 2nd round.

Players Vesely beat along the way? Sousa, Fognini, Schwartzman and Dominic Thiem. So, while taking out Zverev is officially considered an “upset,” it shouldn’t be considered an out-of-nowhere result.

As for Fabbiano…

Tsitisipas losing to the 30-year-old Italian is probably the most unexpected loss of the day, especially since Stef beat him in straights at Wimby last year. But you know whom Thomas beat in the first round *that* time? Stan Wawrinka. And this year he got to the semifinals in Eastbourne.

Then, of course, there’s Stef being Stef. He hasn’t quite erased his gangly, wild-limbed coltishness yet, and on grass that can really bite you.

Doomed, I tell you, DOOMED

So, no one likes to go out on the first day at a Slam, but we gotta say, things got pretty dark, pretty damn fast in the press room.

Slam losses suck, but we open the floor to Canadian wunderkind Felix Auger-Aliassime and some much-needed perspective:

Peeps Love Their May/December Matches

The tennis community had the same ants in their pants for today’s major Age Gap match, with 15-year-old Coco Gauff taking on 39-year-old Venus Williams. Once again, considering that Venus looked mummified and barely able to move on court against Barty in Birmingham, it’s not too much of a shock that all the journos got to use their “CHANGING OF THE GUARD” articles that they’d already written before the match.

As the gloomy shadows descended over the ousted #NextGen players’ press conferences, the hype machine went into full effect for Coco:

Our fave:

Gauff has Sabalenka-slayer Magdalena Rybarikova next.

Grigor…. *sigh*….

It’s rather disconcerting how many Dimitrov matches we’ve seen over the years that he seemed to have well in hand and then…….they just slip away. Today’s match was yet another installment, with a straight-set victory seeming quite attainable, despite Moutet cranking up his efforts in the third.

Moutet clung on, Grigor got a bit sloppy, and we were into a fourth. Not a big setback, but it seemed to slowly drain the energy out of Grigor until there was nothing left but bitterness and a less-than-stellar level of play. These days it’s tough to separate the Bulgarian’s lingering shoulder issues from issues of sudden mental frustration, but whatever the reasons behind today’s match loss……….it was a rough one.

WHAT ELSE???

Okay, you’ve twisted our arm. Here are a few more gems from Day 1 of Wimbledon:

#FEDAL LIVES!!!

Sascha’s romantic hero vibes was one of our most popular tweets of the day:

And just for a little added comparison:

IT ALL STARTS OVER AGAIN TOMORROW!

What was your fave/most horrific moment of Day 1?!! Let us know in the comments or shoot us a tweet over @TennisinsideOut!!

Check out our Day 2 recap!

Please use the share buttons if you enjoyed this post! Thank you, and feel free to subscribe to our site so you don’t miss a thing–just head up to the top of the right sidebar and enter your email address!

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.