TENNIS INSIDE OUT
Alison RiskeAlize CornetAndy MurrayAngelique KerberHarriet DartJelena OstapenkoLauren DavisMarcos BaghdatisNick KyrgiosPetra KvitovaPierre-Hugues HerbertRafael NadalRoger FedererSerena WilliamsTIO Featured 2

Wimbledon Day 4 — This Is What You Came For

Val and J.D.

There’s a sort of chicken/egg scenario going on with Nick Kyrgios these days, displayed quite clearly on Day 4 of Wimbledon. The continuing narrative, illustrated by the tenor of the questions in the press conference you can watch below, is that NK is a tennis prodigy but a talent wasted on drama and controversy and unfulfilled potential.

But if NK were calm and complacent on court, would he get as much press as he does now, win or lose? This match was hyped to the hills (Henman and beyond) and NK delivered as required, with rants at the umpire, venom directed at Rafa for his slow pace of play, the now-trending-on-tour underarm serve, and using Rafa as target practice. Also there was some stunning tennis.

The press conference afterward was yet another performance, with reporters asking provocative questions and NK responding with a mix of cheek, dismissiveness, banter, a bit of flirting, and the usual, “Enh, it’s just tennis, I don’t really care” response.

There was also a segment about “If I applied myself, I could totally beat anyone,” which bizarrely but acutely reminded us of a scene in Pride and Prejudice (book or iconic mini-series, take your pick). The relentlessly snobby Lady Catherine criticizes Elizabeth’s piano playing and tells her she needs to practice more, describes how much she knows about music and ends with: “If I had ever learnt, I should have been a great proficient.”

So much shade, Jane Austen, so much shade. You read something like that from the noted satirist and you smile knowingly….and then it’s kind of hard not to ” Sure, Jan ” NK when he goes off on one of these monologues, despite his very real talent and evidence of having beaten some of the best players on tour.

As you can imagine, the response — to both his antics and the ever-present danger of him winning the match — from Rafa fans was largely pretty scathing. We’ll spare you the details and instead offer a few other perspectives, including some from Rafa himself.

Bold Hypotheticals

Since we’re willing to compare Kyrgios to a Jane Austen character, let’s throw caution to the wind and make an even more controversial comparison.

Like, there is a case to be made for Serena Williams having a very Kyrgios-type of “ugh, I’m bored” relationship with the daily grind of tennis. It’s tough to ignore a persistent pattern in many of the Slam champ’s matches over the years, where the first set goes poorly against someone who would be labeled a “SURPRISE UPSET” if they won. Serena doesn’t move well, makes errors, gets emotional, and then suddenly in set two she’s a renewed force. Often the third set is a horrifying affair for the opponent–a revenge trip for daring to make The Queen work hard for the win.

The commentators usually have questions and suggestions, many which revolve around match fitness, focus, personal life stuff, the opponent redlining it and then running out of steam, etc. It’s something to consider that any or all of these things could be true, or not true, and how everyone’s interpretations of NK’s motivations/actions/love of tennis could also carry a little bit of truth or a little bit of totally wrong, do not pass go, do not collect $200.

Chicks Rule

In other news, Kaja Juvan was rather impressive today and if she’d been able to overcome what was likely a bit of nerves, one less break in the third and she’d have been a real contender for taking that match all the way to victory. Check out the profile on Juvan above, it’s a fun read.

Petra Kvitova is still making her tennis work despite that injured arm…it seems to occasionally refuse to follow-through on a shot, typically sending it wide, but there are more quality strokes than not overall. Kiki Mladenovic, who has been finding some good form with her new partnership with Sascha Bajin, was a tough contender today, particularly in the first set.

But oh man, once Petra got rolling, some really beautiful things happened.

Let’s hope her rest plan continues working for her!

Happy Fourth of July, America!!

A mummified Lauren Davis took out defending champion Angelique Kerber, in definitely one of the more surprising turn of events at Wimbledon. Lauren outhit Angie with about a million to one ratio of winners, and the German just couldn’t seem to dig herself out of an ever-deepening hole as the match wore on.

Angie chalked it up to a bad day, which included getting placed on what is reportedly a molasses-slow grass surface on Court 2 — a dubious court assignment that Angie confirmed was sloooow but took the high road by not giving it power over her loss. But certainly some indignity and a dash of unfairness didn’t help her.

The loss of points is also definitely not going to help her in future. As Kerbs drops out of Top 10, little Lauren is currently up from #95 to #71 in the live rankings. She’ll get a chance to take out another seeded player when she faces Carla Suarez Navarro in the next round…

Alison Riske continues her GOAT run on grass for #Merica, and live rankings have her back inside the Top 50. She joins Serena, Lauren, and Sloane Stephens — who had a swift 6-0 6-2 victory over Wang — in the next round!

Ali beat her next opponent, Belinda Bencic, in a roller-coaster 3-setter at Wimby last year, but the contest could get even trickier this year with Belinda’s good run of form.

Harriet, SWEET Harriet

Clearly we were on to something when we put together our cheery profile on Harriet Dart in time for Wimbledon. She’s improving her game before our very eyes this week, managing her hot-and-cold patches of play well against Muguruza’s vanquisher, Beatriz Haddad Maia, and showing off some big serves and some solid work at net. We will totally be cheering her on in the next round!

In other related news, Hettie’s Wimby doubles partner from last year, Jay Clarke, put on a fantastic show against Roger Federer — getting the 2nd set to a tiebreaker, even — but the Maestro eventually prevailed. Federer himself had to take some time to adjust to a Wimby crowd that was actually cheering quite a bit for the other dude, a rare occurrence for the 8-time champion.

(Article continues below)

WHAT ELSE?

*insert watermelon gif here*

Baghdatis played his final pro match today, going out 1-6, 6-7, 3-6 to Matteo Berrettini. And after watching that vid above, we have something in our eyes and need to take a moment…

………..

….okay then.

We’re a little mad at Pierre ditching Nico to focus on singles to then ditch that idea for playing doubles with Andy, but we’re still going to get a lot of satisfaction if Andy manages to go further than his brother who declined to play with him ’cause he, to paraphrase, didn’t want to waste his golden tennis years playing with his old broken-down bro. So let’s see how THAT plays out…

Rafa has a gloriously theatrical response to a journo who claimed he swore during the match. We can read lips, Rafa, even if you didn’t do it this time, don’t act like you’ve never. But thank you for this glorious gif-moment that will be so useful in the future.

YOU CAN STAY ON THE GRASS, SIR!

A sweet and funny account of Rog and his Wimby grass privileges.

Incredible scenes…

And that’s a wrap for DAY 4!!!!!

Have you read the Day 3 recap?

Shall we move on to DAY 5??

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