Wimbledon Day 6 — Your Mileage May Vary, But…
Grass is a volatile surface, and as such, Wimbledon often features a lot of “UPSET ALERT” and “SEEDS CRASH OUT” headlines. This year seems to be particularly susceptible to a hot mess of a draw as the days go on. Unpredictability can be fun, but the issue with lots of carnage in the first week is that it can lead to a lot of meh matches as the tournament progresses.
As usual, Big 3 fans can be happy as their faves march on despite whatever randoms are wreaking havoc elsewhere. For those tennis fans who are wishing for pretty much ANYONE to win a freakin’ Slam outside of the usual suspects for what now feels like 100 years, Day 6 of Wimby was kind of a…well…dumpster fire.
Oh….Jo…. *sigh*
Nadal throttles Tsonga in dominant display to reach #Wimbledon week two, winning 62% of total points: https://t.co/eqswPtIkGE pic.twitter.com/2SUmkjcC3p
— TENNIS.com (@Tennis) July 7, 2019
Those who have followed tennis for a good while tend to think of Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in terms of his best tennis. With a career-high of #5 and a lot of time spent in the Top 10 & Top 20, the Frenchman has had a more than respectable career. This includes 16 wins — and yes, some were Masters and Slams victories — over the Big 3. In his heyday, no one wanted to see Tsonga and his explosive playing style in their part of the draw.
Plagued by a variety of injuries, including a knee surgery in 2018, Tsonga has in recent times not been 100% the player he once was. That didn’t stop folks from hoping, however, that a recent improvement in form meant his match against Nadal today might be something other than the blowout that it ultimately was.
This presser had a horrible feel to it. Not only does Tsonga look deflated throughout, but is asked:
— Matthew Willis (@MattRacquet) July 6, 2019
“2008 was your slam final against Novak, 10 years later Novak managed to win double digit slams, meanwhile you cannot win any single slam, what happened?”https://t.co/DlTsEwsqTw
Getting a player’s take on one or more of their colleagues can sometimes be interesting, but at this point in their respective careers, Tsonga shouldn’t have to be talking about those other guys anymore. And aside from the tactless form and timing of the above question, it also paints a picture of a player who fell off the earth after 2008, which is ridiculously untrue.
If you insist on talking about painful career turning points, for us the 2012 French Open felt like another moment when Tsonga seemed poised to grab a Slam. After taking out Fognini in straights and cusp-of-greatness Stan Wawrinka in five, Tsonga had a four-set victory over Djokovic on his racquet.
Yes, Jo would have had to beat Roger and Rafa as well, the ridiculous Road to the Title that has continuously stood in the way of outsiders breaking through. Sure you can beat one, maybe two, but all three? That year it felt like Jo had the talent and power to do it. But a 6-8 loss in the fourth-set TB and…the rest is history.
Pouille in Peril
It’s hard to stop @rogerfederer in this kind of form…
— Wimbledon (@Wimbledon) July 6, 2019
The Swiss defeats Lucas Pouille 7-5, 6-2, 7-6(4) to notch his 350th match win at Grand Slams – the first player in history to reach the milestone#Wimbledon pic.twitter.com/A1sBL0HS5L
We here at Tennis Inside Out are big Lucas Pouille fans, so as much as we also love The Maestro, we couldn’t help but hope the Frenchman would peak at Wimby and get that ranking well up. With the ability to hit big from the baseline as well as having a delicate touch at net, a big grass court win didn’t seem like a crazy idea.
The good news was that Pouille did have a chance to shine on court today, particularly in the first and third sets. It was at times an elegant and breathtaking dance with Federer, a rapid flurry of arcing shots from every part of the court.
The bad news was that it still ended in a straight-sets loss. With his usual tactical skill and quick hands, and an extra dash of luck, Fed got the last laugh on a lot of the impressive rallies. It felt like this could have been a 5-setter if a few points went a different way, but such is the life of tennis.
Berrettini / Schwartzman and Sousa / Evans brought the day’s 5-set drama and quite a lot of good tennis, but as we see the draw that once included Wawrinka, Tsitsipas, Thiem, Kyrgios, Zverev, and Auger-Aliassime giving us a Week 2 featuring Sousa, Kukushkin, Sandgren and Querrey — with respect to the work those guys put in to get here, we yet again feel the crushing inevitability of Djokovic / Nadal, Episode 1, 487, 236.
So, you know…. #DumpsterFire
(Article continues below.)
Less of a Mess?
Carla Suarez Navarro defeats Lauren Davis 6-3, 6-3 to reach the Wimbledon fourth round. Davis couldn’t quite get into inspiration mode like she did at times vs Kerber. Over-pressed a lot and rarely even played two-three consecutively good points. #Wimbledon
— Jake Davies (@jakedavi5) July 6, 2019
Players obviously diverge from fans on big upset wins. As much as they’d like to back up the victory, players take home the additional money and points from that upset win no matter what happens after. For us fans, however, there’s not a lot of upside to seeing the Slam-winning Kerber go out just so we can have Carla Suarez Navarro desperately try to get more than 5 games (unsuccessful in 6 meetings so far) in a 4th round match against Serena.
In comparison to the men’s side however, the Manic Monday line-up for the WTA has more match-ups that look compelling:
And I OOP for Manic Monday at #Wimbledon: pic.twitter.com/UmnuuxYiCX
— Ben Rothenberg (@BenRothenberg) July 6, 2019
That feeling when you reach the second week of #Wimbledon
— Petra Kvitova (@Petra_Kvitova) July 6, 2019
It’s been a while 😊 pic.twitter.com/elRS2BXFBv
🎾 What a brilliant win for Jo Konta vs Sloane Stephens, really enjoyed that!
— Jonathan Pinfield 🎾 (@tweetsbyjp) July 6, 2019
Up next, she’ll face Petra Kvitova in the last 16 – what a match that will be!
Great stuff!
😀🎾👍 pic.twitter.com/0GVH2yeU0K
Alison Riske won more grass court matches than anyone this year, Barty world number 1. This court 2 may actually favour Alison https://t.co/YBmfQsLIqM
— Chris Goldsmith (@TheTennisTalker) July 6, 2019
The Gauff / Halep match has also generated tons of excitement, but the jury is still out on whether it will be as competitive as peeps are hoping for. As usual, Wimbledon stubbornly avoids putting two women’s matches on Centre Court. And then of course there’s:
The most annoying thing about Manic Monday is how all these interesting women’s matches are played simultaneously early on and how we’ll left with only boring men’s matches from 4 pm onwards
— sibi (@tfan_24) July 7, 2019
We’ll know women’s tennis is truly on its way to equality when these crappy scheduling choices stop being an issue.
SerAndy Rules the Day
So, do you come here often?#Wimbledon pic.twitter.com/feIrz7Bqwl
— Wimbledon (@Wimbledon) July 6, 2019
We’re still kinda partial to #MuzzRena, but hey, whatever you call them, the mixed doubles team-up of Serena Williams and Andy Murray stole the show on Day 6. There was excitement, laughs, some brilliant tennis, and opponents Alexa Guarachi and Andreas Mies handled the star-power mayhem with endless good humor.
A match made for #Wimbledon@serenawilliams and @andy_murray are victorious on their mixed doubles debut together on Centre Court pic.twitter.com/v76pzIiU1e
— Wimbledon (@Wimbledon) July 6, 2019
As energetic and exhilarating as the match was overall, there has possibly been nothing better in the entire tournament than this moment when Serena scrambled and fell at net….and…well, you’ll see…
LMAO! pic.twitter.com/qXrlcwwVxk
— Steph (@StephintheUS) July 6, 2019
Serena’s just rolling around on the grass trying to stay out of Andy’s way 😂😂😂
— James Rogers (@ElliottJMR) July 6, 2019
You okay there, @serenawilliams 🤣#Wimbledon pic.twitter.com/Z4JgZEdRt1
— Wimbledon (@Wimbledon) July 6, 2019
It’s not as easy to see in the gif version, but that last moment with just a hint of Serena’s bum still in frame just.totally.slayed.us. Hysterically awesome stuff.
Sleep on Middle Sunday to Prepare for Manic Monday…
So, that’s a wrap for Day 6 of Wimbledon and we gotta say, after a week of long tennis days and very little sleep, we are ready for Middle Sunday…
Was it a delight or a #DumpsterFire for you all? Let us know in the comments or drop us a line @TennisInsideOut !!!!
Are you also caught up on Day 5? Want to see it all from the beginning with Day 1?
Want to jump ahead to Day 7, aka Manic, Miserable Monday?
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