Decade's Best: Players of the Decade Update #3
Three-quarters of the way through the slam season, and the list of nominees for "The Players of the Decade" list keeps getting smaller.
We all know the names of most of the individuals who'll likely be around for the final #1-10 roll call later this year, but who is still holding on (at least until New York) long enough to be in the mix for the spots that'll fill out the rest of the list?
*2010-19 NOMINATION LIST*
STARTING NOMINATIONS: 152 players
AO adds: +5
AO cuts: -21
Post-AO: 136 players
RG adds: +5
RG cuts: -43
Post-RG: 98 players
WI adds: +1
WI cuts: -30
Post-WI: 69 players
Only one player was added to the qualifying list (Karolina Muchova) following this year's Wimbledon, with three others (Alison Riske, Barbora Strycova and Elina Svitolina) getting a promotion as far as the hightest category under which they qualify for inclusion. As it is, only Strycova and Svitolina survived this cut.
Here are the cuts from the original/amended list after each 2019 slam, followed by the remaining 69 players in descending order of category nominaton:
Amanda Anisimova
Danielle Collins
Jelena Jankovic
Andrea Petkovic
Anastasija Sevastova
*GRAND SLAM SINGLES QUARTERFINALIST*
Camila Giorgi
Kaia Kanepi
Dasha Kasatkina
Maria Kirilenko
Svetlana Kuznetsova
Petra Martic
Karolina Muchova
Nadia Petrova
Alison Riske
*DOUBLES/MIXED SLAM CHAMPION*
Gisela Dulko
Anna-Lena Groenefeld
Kveta Peschke
*YEAR-END DOUBLES TOP 10*
Demi Schuurs
Rennae Stubbs
*OLYMPIC SINGLES QF-OR-BETTER*
Monica Puig
*SLAM DOUBLES/MIXED SEMIFINAL*
Raquel Atawo
Duan Yingying
Johanna Larsson
Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez
Aryna Sabalenka
Xu Yifan
*OLYMPIC DOUBLES/MIXED QUARTERFINAL*
Chan Hao-ching
*WHEELCHAIR SINGLES SLAM/MASTERS YEC/PARALYMPIC FINALS*
Marjolein Buis
Sabine Ellerbrock
*ASIAN GAMES FINALS*
Wang Qiang
Justine Henin
Sabine Lisicki
*GRAND SLAM SINGLES SEMIFINALIST*
Elena Dementieva
Kirsten Flipkens
Ana Ivanovic
Mirjana Lucic-Baroni
Tsvetana Pironkova
Magdalena Rybarikova
Zheng Jie
*GRAND SLAM SINGLES QUARTERFINALIST*
Daniela Hantuchova
Ana Konjuh
Tamira Paszek
Yulia Putintseva
Shelby Rogers
Lesia Tsurenko
Alison Van Uytvanck
Zhang Shuai
*DOUBLES/MIXED SLAM CHAMPION*
Iveta Benesova
Casey Dellacqua
Laura Siegemund
Abigail Spears
Heather Watson
*SLAM DOUBLES/MIXED SEMIFINAL*
Shuko Aoyama
Jen Brady
Harriet Dart
Kimiko Date
Margarita Gasparyan
Eri Hozumi
Miyu Kato
Andreja Klepac
Varvara Lepchenko
Christina McHale
Monica Niculescu
Makota Ninomiya
Anastasia Rodionova
Alicja Rosolska
Astra Sharma
Taylor Townsend
Galina Voskoboeva
Yang Zhaoxuan
Zheng Saisai
Jarmila Gajdosova
Melanie Oudin
*YEAR-END DOUBLES TOP 10*
Nuria Llagostera-Vives
*OLYMPIC DOUBLES/MIXED MEDALIST*
Laura Robson
*SLAM DOUBLES/MIXED SEMIFINAL*
Vera Dushevina
Marina Erakovic
Klaudia Jans-Ignacik
Michaella Krajicek
Anabel Medina-Garrigues
Chanelle Scheepers
Tamarine Tanasugarn
*OLYMPIC DOUBLES/MIXED QUARTERFINAL*
Irina-Camelia Begu
Chuang Chia-jung
Teliana Pereira
*WHEELCHAIR SINGLES SLAM/MASTERS YEC/PARALYMPIC FINALS*
Daniela Di Toro
Florence Gravellier
Korie Homan
Sharon Walraven
*ASIAN GAMES FINALS*
Akgul Amanmuradova
Chan Chin-wei
Aldila Sutjiadi
Here are the official remaining nominations, in descending order of category "importance."
There will be another cut after the U.S. Open, to somewhere around 35-40, then the rest will be cut to a final 26 (Top 25 + an honorable mention, of course) that I'll gradually countdown in updates over the final few months of the season.
*GRAND SLAM SINGLES CHAMPION* (18)
Victoria Azarenka
Marion Bartoli
Ash Barty
Kim Clijsters
Simona Halep
Angelique Kerber
Petra Kvitova
Li Na
Garbine Muguruza
Naomi Osaka
Alona Ostapenko
Flavia Pennetta
Francesca Schiavone
Maria Sharapova
Sloane Stephens
Samantha Stosur
Serena Williams
Caroline Wozniacki
*GRAND SLAM SINGLES RUNNER-UP* (11)
Genie Bouchard
Dominika Cibulkova
Sara Errani
Madison Keys
Karolina Pliskova
Aga Radwanska
Lucie Safarova
Roberta Vinci
Marketa Vondrousova
Venus Williams
Vera Zvonareva
*GRAND SLAM SINGLES SEMIFINALIST* (11)
Timea Bacsinszky
Kiki Bertens
Julia Goerges
Johanna Konta
Ekaterina Makarova
Elise Mertens
Peng Shuai
Barbora Strycova
Elina Svitolina
CoCo Vandeweghe
Elena Vesnina
*GRAND SLAM SINGLES QUARTERFINALIST* (6)
Belinda Bencic
Caroline Garcia
Kristina Mladenovic
Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova
Yaroslava Shvedova
Carla Suarez-Navarro
*YEAR-END TOP 10*
--
*EIGHT-OR-MORE WTA SINGLES TITLES - 2010-19*
--
*DOUBLES/MIXED SLAM CHAMPION* (17)
Timea Babos
Cara Black
Latisha Chan
Gaby Dabrowski
Martina Hingis
Hsieh Su-wei
Liezel Huber
Vania King
Barbora Krejcikova
Bethanie Mattek-Sands
Sania Mirza
Andrea S.-Hlavackova
Lucie Hradecka
Nicole Melichar
Lisa Raymond
Katerina Siniakova
Katarina Srebotnik
*YEAR-END DOUBLES TOP 10*
--
*OLYMPIC SINGLES QF-OR-BETTER*
--
*OLYMPIC DOUBLES/MIXED MEDALIST*
--
*SLAM DOUBLES/MIXED SEMIFINAL*
--
*OLYMPIC DOUBLES/MIXED QUARTERFINAL*
--
*WHEELCHAIR SINGLES SLAM/MASTERS YEC/PARALYMPIC FINALS* (6)
Diede de Groot
Jiske Griffioen
Yui Kamiji
Aniek Van Koot
Esther Vergeer
Jordanne Whiley
*WHEELCHAIR DOUBLES SLAM/MASTERS YEC/PARALYMPIC TITLE*
--
*ASIAN GAMES FINALS*
--
The grass isn't always greener on the All-England Club lawns, but once they arrive there some players *do* tend to be more equal than others.
...though she played her maiden Wimbledon in 1998, and won her first in 2002, the *historic* nature and breadth of Williams' career played out over the course of the 2010's at SW19. She opened the decade with her thirteenth major crown, surpassing Billie Jean King, but was still sixth on the all-time list at the time (and well behind the trio of Graf, Navratilova and Evert in the Open era), and ended it playing in back-to-back finals attempting to win #24 to tie Margaret Court for the most slam singles titles in tennis history.
Williams twice returned to the tournament after long breaks (in '11 following a foot injury, then in '18 after having a baby), but still claimed four singles titles, two in doubles and played in two more Ladies finals. Nearly every time out, she accomplished *something* of note. She won in 2010 without dropping a set, swept the singles and doubles in '12, then returned a few weeks later to London and did the same at the Olympics. In 2015, she completed Serena Slam II (four straight major titles), then swept the singles and doubles again a year later. In 2017, she was the oldest Wimbledon singles champion (35) in the Open era, and in '19 the oldest slam finalist (37). In fact, knocking down the record-tying 24th win was the only thing that eluded Williams in London in the 2010's, as within the confines of the All-England Club she even avoided the sort of image-straining blowups that pockmarked her nearly as dominant (and maybe more so) stretch at the U.S. Open over the same timeframe. While other champions occasionally rose above her at individual Wimbledon events, Serena was most definitely the spoon that stirred the cup of tea.
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2. Petra Kvitova, CZE
...by the decade's mid-way point, there was a line of thought that not only would Kvitova give Serena a run for being the "face" of Wimbledon in the 2010's, but that with the bulk of the years taking place during what should be during her "career prime" she was actually the favorite to do so. But that's why Serena is Serena, and everyone else is, well, not.
While a young Kvitova's opening half-decade -- SF-W-QF-QF-W -- is a match to (or better than) that of any of the greats of recent times *not* named Navratilova (and maybe Graf), she wasn't able to maintain the pace in the back-half due to illness, injury and a lack of preparedness after hand surgery during a home invasion attack in late '16. After her second title run in '14, she didn't return to the second week at SW19 until 2019, and then failed to reach the QF for a fifth straight year. Still, with so few players able to maintain a decade-long run of consistently high-level results at Wimbledon, or if they did they failed to ever *win* a singles title, Kvitova is still a pretty solid #2 behind Williams for the 2010's (though her ultimate position *was* in question heading into the final fortnight).
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3. Angelique Kerber, GER
...as has been the case during her career, time and patience were Kerber's friends, as she built her Wimbledon resume over the course of the decade, getting better and better as she aged, and then having her greatest triumph in the latter stages of her journey.
When the decade began, Kerber was an afterthought. She's appeared in ten slam MD over the court of three and a half years and never once advanced out of the 3rd Round. Heading into 2012, though she'd reached the semis in New York the previous year, she was just 2-4 in her SW19 career. But Kerber's Wimbledon SF proved that she hadn't *just* had a couple good weeks at the Open. As she built herself into a multiple-slam winner and reached #1, so she undertook the same "nation-building" process in London. She reached the final in 2016, losing to Serena, then returned two years later (after having slipped outside the Top 20 in '17 after her "career year") and beat her in Williams' *first* try at winning major #24, becoming the first German to win at Wimbledon since Steffi Graf in 1996.
Going into '19, had Kerber put together a SF-or-better run (and surely if she'd won title #2), she'd had a shot at finishing at #2 behind Williams on this list. But Kvitova's (just) second week appearance and Kerber's disappointing early loss locked her into the "Bronze" position on the medal stand.
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4. Garbine Muguruza, ESP
...when Muguruza is "on" she's just about unbeatable, but quite the opposite is the case otherwise.
The same can be said of her decade of play at Wimbledon. A finalist in 2015, then the champion in '17 (defeating Venus Williams in the final, becoming the first player to take down *both* sisters in a slam title decider) to become Spain's first Ladies winner since 1994, Muguruza nevertheless failed to even reach the 3rd Round in her other five MD appearances. Her 2010's results line -- 2r-1r-RU-2r-W-2r-1r -- says it all about the tour's biggest enigma and it's most frustratingly (mostly mentally) inconsistent "big-time" talent.
That said, of all the players on this Top 10 list, she's *still* probably the most likely to contend for a Top 5 spot for a similar grouping of Wimbledon talents at the end of the *next* decade.
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5. Aga Radwanska, POL
...#7 on this list aside, Radwanska was the best player this decade at Wimbledon who never actually won it.
A junior champion in 2005, Aga's bag of magic tricks found the perfect performance stage on the green grass of her "second" tennis home. In the decade, she played in one final, reached a pair of semis and four Round of 16's. In 2012, she was a set away from defeating Serena Williams in the final and becoming the #1-ranked player in the world (and she *had a shot* too). A year later she seemed to be the favorite when a bevy of upsets thinned the draw and left her -- as the #4 seed -- standing in a field of (mostly) double-digit and unseeded competitors. But a trio of three-setters left her at less than 100% in a *fourth* in a semifinal that went the way of Sabine Lisicki via a 9-7 final set score. The image of a crushed Radwanska not even being able to look at her opponent as she "shook" her hand at the net, and then soon scurried off the court to lick her wounds and lament the biggest lost opportunity of her career, will linger just as much as *the* moment of her tour life as the image of Jana Novotna's tears on the shoulder of the Duchess of Kent would today had the Czech not managed to finally win Wimbledon a few years later. Actually, *both* may still represent *the* moment that defined their careers, only Novotna's ultimate triumph five years later gave hers an eternally resilient glow.
Radwanska reached another SF in 2015 (a three-set defeat vs. Muguruza), but her lost opportunities in 2012 *and* '13 will forever have to compete for primacy in the mind's eye with her many head-spinning angled drops shots, crouched baseline blocks and "what-just-happened?" eye-bugging, and aesthetically pleasing, unconventional winners. It's *still* a wonderful legacy. Oh, but what if...
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6. Sabine Lisicki, GER
...did *anyone* love playing at Wimbledon in the 2010's more than Lisicki? Her giddy personality and ever-present smile while putting together a super-impressive (though title-free) first-half of the decade surely put more than a few checkmarks in her personal column.
A quarterfinalist in '09, the German, as she often has been in her career, was felled by injury and missed the 2010 Wimbledon. A famously (though never seen) love letter to the AELTC earned her a WC into the MD in 2011, and it changed everything. All five of Lisicki's career QF+ results in majors came at Wimbledon, as did her only slam singles (2013) and doubles (2011) finals. Seven of her thirteen career Top 10 wins came at the All-England Club, with five during the 2011-13 stretch, including back-to-back #1 wins in 2012 (Sharapova) and 2013 (S.Williams), as well as four straight SW19 wins (w/ '09 included) over reigning Roland Garros champions in London. Her results line -- (2009 QF)-DNP-SF-QF-RU-QF -- provides evidence of her standing for casual fans who may have forgotten by now about her early-decade prominence in the grasscourt conversation.
Of course, after injuries had made her first-half experiences so special, a recurrence of such issues have played a part in limiting Lisicki to just one MD match at Wimbledon from 2017-19.
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7. Venus Williams, USA
...there was a time when the Wimbledon legend of Venus Williams appeared ready to flame out, as a string of her early-decade comments in response to disappointing losses and/or her "advancing age" attest. But while her best SW19 years were in the 2000's, and her sister ultimately prevented her from perhaps becoming the greatest player in the tournament's history (if not for three losses in finals to Serena in *that* decade, Venus would have won eight titles between 2000-09), Venus' was still a force to contend with (and it was an accomplishment to savor for anyone who defeated) in the 2010's.
Williams claimed her fifth and sixth SW19 doubles titles (#13 & #14 overall) in 2012 and '16 alongside Serena, and won at the AELTC in the London Olympics in '16, as well. But while she was already 30 by the time the 2010 Wimbledon fortnight came about, and her Sjogren's syndrome condition had yet to be diagnosed, she still managed to post five second week results, including a QF (2010), a SF (2016) and a even a ninth final (2017) appearance at age 37.
While Venus ended the decade with a 1st Round loss to a player (15-year old Coco Gauff) 24 years her junior, that she was playing (and still a relevent name in the draw at age 39 in her 22nd appearance over a 23-year stretch) pegs her as the most continuously enduring player in the history of the women's game (well, you know, unless Serena ends up outlasting her there, as well).
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8. Simona Halep, ROU
...while Halep's legacy will always revolve around her trials and triumphs in Paris, her 2019 Wimbledon title run is her most impressive career performance and could very well ultimately help define her career like few other *second* major wins ever have.
In many ways, SW19 has been the "proving ground" for Romania's only Wimbledon champion. One slam after reaching her maiden slam final at RG in 2014, Halep reached the semis at Wimbledon. Back-to-back QF in 2016-17 proved it hadn't been a one-year aberration, with the second final 8 result coming after another final in Paris. Then, in 2019, in the first major since the end of Halep's reign as the Roland Garros champ, she dropped just one set in the fortnight, thwarting Serena's *third* attempt at #24 with a tactical masterpiece pulled off as perfectly as if it'd been penned in calligraphic handwriting on fine paper with a feathered quill pen whose tip has been dipped in India ink. And *that* match had come after a nearly-as-pristine snuffing out of rival Elina Svitolina in the semis.
We'll soon learn whether her Wimbledon title be a stepping stone to something *more*, a follow-up we *didn't* get the chance to see play out with the #9 player on this list.
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9. Marion Bartoli, FRA
...Bartoli surely would have finished several places higher on this list had her biggest, "career-altering" moment on the Wimbledon stage hadn't also been her *last* one.
In retrospect, the French woman's 2013 title run wasn't nearly the "shock" it first seemed to many, considering she'd been a finalist in 2007. But injuries and inconsistency *had* made her Last Woman Standing result unlikely, even during a fortnight that had seen some of the most dramatic draw carnage in the tournament's history. Fact is, Bartoli didn't lose a set during her title run, a feat only Serena Williams -- but only once, in 2010 -- could match amongst the decade's Ladies champions.
But Bartoli only played a few more matches after her career zenith, retiring that summer at age 29, citing the wear and tear of more than a decade-long career. We'll never know what winning Wimbledon might have done for what during could have been a two to four-year window of continued contention, only that her triumph was quite literally the prize at the end of a long (sometimes controversial, and always unusual) safari.
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10. ???
...I did this when compiling the Roland Garros Top 10, and I'm doing it again. As before, while most of those included on this list are easy choices (it's just a matter of order), the final spot isn't necessarily an open-and-shut case. Many players -- aside from the (predominantly) doubles and wheelchair achievers of the 2010's -- are realistically in the conversation, including probably a few I didn't even include here.
Nonetheless, here are *my* contenders in alphabetical order (you can make your own pick, then see which one I went with)...
Victoria Azarenka, BLR: had two semis (2011-12) early in the decade, but injuries and having a baby limited her to just one 4th Rd. and a QF in the next six years
Johanna Konta, GBR: famously broke the Brits' 39-year drought of women's semifinalists (and reached the QF in '19), but has won just two matches in her other six appearances
Martina Navratilova, USA: what the heck, right? Wimbledon's all-time champ, Martina is still gettin' it done thirteen years after her final professional match (a MX final win at the U.S. Open in 2006). Forty-six years after her Wimbledon debut in 1973, Navratilova became the oldest champion of any kind at SW19 at age 62 when she won the Invitation doubles in 2019. It's her fifth title in the event (the most ever) since '09, and she was playing in her sixth straight final even while competing against some recently retired players who are nearly thirty years younger than her.
Tsvetana Pironkova, BUL: well known for upsetting Venus twice (2010-11) and reaching the SF/QF in those two fortnights, but she only had one other 3rd Rd.-or-better result at SW19 in her career ('13 - 4r to Radwanska)
Maria Sharapova, RUS: in 2015, she'd been an easy pick, and might have ranked ahead of at least one champion, as she had a final (2011), a semi (2015) and three Rd. of 16's with four years to play. But due to suspension and injury she hasn't won a MD match since '15. Is her early work *still* enough?
Barbora Strycova, CZE: the recency effect is in play, as Strycova's '14 QF was doused with the glitter of a singles SF and WD title (w/ #1 doubles ranking attached) in 2019
Elena Vesnina, RUS: a five-time WD/MX finalist, with a doubles win in '17. She reached the singles semis in '16, but had seven 1r/2r exits and didn't play in 2018-19 due to pregnancy.
Vera Zvonareva, RUS: opened the decade strong with singles and doubles finals in 2010, but was only in two MD (3r/1r) from 2013-19
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...Azarenka's record is too incomplete, Pironkova is more of a novelty, and Navratilova is really competing in a different event (though she'd get an "Honorable Mention"). Strycova is too heavily weighted with one year, while Vesnina's doubles-heavy top-level results will be reflected in her spot in the Doubles listings. So that left Konta, with one history-elbowing result (but not a win) on her side, and Sharapova, albeit with a big hole in her results.
In the end, Sharapova's first half of the decade would rank her with (or near) several champions in the Top 9, so she'll sneak onto the grounds before the AELTC's iron gate locks behind her.
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"I'm obviously not pleased with this result. But I have to move on. What else can I do? Unless I have time machine. which I don't." (2010)
"I don't have time to be negative. It doesn't feel good." - (2012)
"I'm not looking for anyone to believe in me or anything like that. You have to believe in yourself these days. I have nothing to prove, nothing to hide, nothing to lose." (2014)
"I don't think anyone feels older. You have this infinity inside of you that feels like you could go on forever." (2016)
"Retiring is the easy way out. I don't have time for easy." (2016)
"I don't think about my age. It is not a factor." (2017)
"She [Venus Williams] said congratulations. I told her, 'Thank you for everything that you did. I wouldn’t be here without you. I always wanted to tell her that.'" (2019 - Coco Gauff)
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2. Serena Williams/Venus Williams, USA/USA: they only played Wimbledon four times in the decade, winning twice, to run their career SW19 mark to 45-3 (125-15 in all majors)
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3. Hsieh Su-wei, TPE: Hsieh was the only non-Williams to win multiple Wimbledon WD titles in the decade, doing so six years apart (2013/19) with two different partners (Peng/Strycova)
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4. Elena Vesnina, RUS: the Russian reached five finals (3 WD/2 MX) in the decade, winning in '17 with Ekaterina Makarova (her '10 final was w/ Zvonareva)
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5. Barbora Krejcikova/Katerina Siniakova, CZE/CZE: the 2013 junior doubles champs, they became the first pair to win the girls *and* Ladies doubles crowns when they took the big title in 2018. Extra points for sweeping RG & SW19 in both years.
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6. Ekaterina Makarova/Elena Vesnina, RUS/RUS: the '17 WD winners (and '15 finalists) are only missing the Australian Open crown from their major trophy case
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7. Kristina Mladenovic, FRA: the Pastry won her first slam title with the 2013 MX, and reached at least the QF in WD with three different partners (Garcia '16, Kuznetsova '17 and Babos '14 F/'15 SF, but only QF/SF as the #1 seeds in '18/19). Kiki hasn't played MX at Wimbledon since '15.
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8. Heather Watson, GBR: broke a 29-year drought of British MX champs at Wimbledon by winning in '16 w/ Henri Kontinen, then made it back to the final the following year
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9. Timea Babos, HUN: a WD (2014/Mladenovic) and MX (2015) finalist, with two other semis ('15 w/ Mladenovic, '16 w/ Shvedova) and a girls doubles title with Sloane Stephens in '10
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10. Lisa Raymond, USA: Raymond was already 36 when the decade began, with 5 WD ('01 WI) and 4 MX ('99 WI) titles in her career. She added the '12 MX title (w/ finals in '10/13) to a career haul that will eventually make her a Hall of Famer.
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HM- Sara Errani/Roberta Vinci, ITA/ITA: the Italians didn't have sustained SW19 success from 2010-14, but they produced perhaps the decade's best WD moment by completing their Career Doubles Slam in 2014
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2. Diede de Groot, NED: One title away from maybe seizing the top spot for the decade. Her loss in the singles final in '19 prevented a three-peat, which would have been the first in singles in a major since Esther Vergeer's final win at RG in 2012. Still, in her six SW19 draws in the decade, de Groot won two singles and two doubles titles, and reached the finals of the other two events.
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3. Aniek Van Koot, NED: the busiest WC player in the decade, she won three doubles titles with Jiske Griffioen (2) and Diede de Groot (1) and reached three more finals. In singles, after runner-up results in two of the first three Wimbledon singles events, she upset de Groot in '19 to claim her first. Of the fourteen WC finals contested in the decade, Van Koot played in nine.
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4. Jiske Griffioen, NED: she'll always be the *first* Wimbledon WC singles champ from 2016. She also won two WD crowns in 2012-13 before falling in three straight finals (w/ Van Koot) to Kamiji/Whiley.
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5. Esther Vergeer, NED: Vergeer never played in a Wimbledon singles match, but won in doubles in 2010-11 with Sharon Walraven (after having won w/ Korie Homan in '09). She lost in the 2012 SF (w/ Marjolein Buis) in her final slam competition.
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"I don't think this is the only time she'll win here. It's very exciting. A new star." - Martina Navratilova, on Petra Kvitova (2011)
"I don't want to change, I just want to be like everyone else. I'm nothing special." - Petra Kvitova (2011)
"It’s my second title, so I hope that now it's going to be a little easier for me." - Petra Kvitova (2014)
2011/12: Genie Bouchard (2011-12 doubles W)
2017/18: Caty McNally & Whitney Osuigwe (2017-18 doubles RU)
[Back-to-Back-to-Back Finals]
2016-18: Caty McNally (2016/17/18 doubles RU)
[Bannerette Singles Finalists]
2013: Taylor Townsend (RU)
2017: Claire Liu def. Ann Li
2019: Alexa Noel (RU)
[Hordette Singles Finalists]
2011: Irina Khromacheva (RU)
2015: Sofya Zhuk def. Anna Blinkova
2016: Anasastasia Potapova (W)
[Ukrainian Singles Finalists]
2012: Elina Svitolina (RU)
2016: Dayana Yastremska (RU)
2019: Daria Snigur (W)
[Swiss Singles Finalists]
2013: Belinda Bencic (W)
2018: Leonie Kung (RU)
[Chinese Doubles Champs]
2014: Qui Yu Ye
2018: Wang Xinyu & Wang Xiyu
[Bannerette Doubles Champs]
2010: Sloane Stephens
2011: Grace Min
2012: Taylor Townsend
2016: Usue Arconada & Claire Liu
2019: Savannah Broadus & Abigail Forbes
[Singles/Doubles Sweep]
2012: Genie Bouchard
[Gettin' Better All the Time...]
2010 Girls Doubles finalist --> 2011 Girls Singles finalist: Irina Khromacheva
2010 Girls Doubles finalist --> 2012 Girls Singles finalist: Elina Svitolina
2011/12 Girls Doubles champ --> 2012 Girls Singles champ: Genie Bouchard
2012 Girls Doubles finalist --> 2013 Girls Singles champ: Belinda Bencic
[Firsts and...]
2010: Kristyna Pliskova wins Girls singles (1st time two sisters win jr. slams in a season - Karolina/AO)
2011: Ash Barty is 1st AUS to win Wimbledon Girls in 31 years
2012: Genie Bouchard is 1st CAN to win junior slam title
2012: Aga Radwanska is the 7th to reach Girls (2005) and Ladies (2012) finals
2013: Belinda Bencic is first to win RG/WI Girls titles back-to-back since 1996 (Mauresmo)
2014: Alona Ostapenko is 1st LAT to win junior slam title
2014: Tami Grende & Qui Yu Ye (INA/CHN) are 1st all-Asian duo to win GD slam
2014: Genie Bouchard is the 8th to reach Girls (2012) and Ladies (2014) finals
2015: Sofya Zhuk def. Anna Blinkova in first all-RUS Wimb.Girls final since 2002 (Dushevina/Sharapova)
2015: Dalma Galfi & Fanni Stollar are 1st all-HUN duo to win a junior slam title
2015: Sofya Zhuk is 2nd RUS to win Wimbledon Girls title (2002/Dushevina)
2016: Anastasia Potapova is 2nd consecutive RUS to win Wimbledon Girls title
2016: Usue Arconada & Claire Liu are first all-U.S. duo to Wimbledon GD since 1989 (Capriati/McGrath)
2017: Claire Liu def. Ann Li in first all-U.S. Wimbledon Girls final since 1979 (Piatek/Moultron)
2018: Iga Swiatek is 4th POL to win Wimbledon Girls title
2018: First time two CHN in Girls slam singles SF (Wang Xinyu & Wang Xiyu)
2018: Wang Xinyu & Wang Xiyu are 1st all-CHN duo to win a GD slam
2018: Barbora Krejcikova & Katerina Siniakova are 1st duo to win Jr./Ladies Doubles titles (2013/18)
2019: Daria Snigur is 2nd UKR to win Wimbledon Girls title (2004/K.Bondarenko)
1994 Girls Singles champ --> 2015 Ladies Doubles/2015 & 17 MX champ: Martina Hingis
2003 Girls Doubles champ --> 2015 Ladies Doubles champ: Sania Mirza
2015 Girls Doubles champs --> 2018 Ladies Doubles champs: Barbora Krejcikova & Katerina Siniakova
2002 Girls Doubles champ --> 2019 Ladies Doubles champ: Barbora Strycova
[The Idea was a Good One...]
2005 Girls Singles champ --> 2012 Ladies finalist: Aga Radwanska
2011 Girls Singles champ --> 2013 Ladies Doubles finalist: Ash Barty
2010 Girls Doubles champ --> 2014/16 Ladies Doubles/2015 MX finalist: Timea Babos
2012 Girls Singles champ --> 2014 Ladies finalist: Genie Bouchard
=============================
2010: Tsvetana Pironkova defeats Venus Williams for the first time at Wimbledon. She'll do it again in 2011.
=============================
2010: Petra Kvitova and Tsvetana Pironkova reach their first slam semifinals
=============================
2010: Vera Zvonareva reaches her first slam final
=============================
2011: Wimbledon debuts: Simona Halep, CoCo Vandeweghe
=============================
2011: Victoria Azarenka and Sabine Lisicki reach their first slam semifinals
=============================
2012: Wimbledon debuts: Ash Barty, Karolina Pliskova, Sloane Stephens
=============================
2012: Aga Radwanska reaches her first slam semifinal, and is the first Polish player to reach a major singles final
=============================
2013: Wimbledon debuts: Genie Bouchard, Madison Keys, Garbine Muguruza & Elina Svitolina
=============================
2013: Kirsten Flipkens reaches her first slam semifinal
=============================
2013: First-time slam finalist - Sabine Lisicki
=============================
2014: Wimbledon debut: Belinda Bencic
=============================
2014: Lucie Safarova reaches her first slam semifinal
=============================
2014: Genie Bouchard is the first Canadian to reach a slam final
=============================
2015: Wimbledon debut: Alona Ostapenko
=============================
2015: Garbine Muguruza reaches her first slam semifinal and final. She's the first Spanish woman to play for a major title since 1998.
=============================
2016: Wimbledon debut: Dasha Kasatkina
=============================
2016: Elena Vesnina reaches her first slam semifinal
=============================
2016: Jiske Griffioen wins the inaugural Wimbledon Ladies wheelchair singles title
=============================
2017: Wimbledon debuts: Bianca Andreescu, Diede de Groot (WC), Naomi Osaka & Marketa Vondrousova
=============================
2017: RG champ Alona Ostapenko is the first player since 2006 (Clijsters) to reach the QF at the next major after winning her maiden slam title
=============================
2017: Magdalena Rybarikova reaches her first slam semifinal
=============================
2017: Diede de Groot wins her first career slam title (doubles)
=============================
2018: Camila Giorgi is the first Italian to reach the Wimbledon QF since 2009
=============================
2018: Julia Goerges reaches her first slam semifinal
=============================
2018: Diede de Groot is the first woman to sweep the wheelchair singles and doubles titles
=============================
2019: Wimbledon debuts: Coco Gauff, Iga Swiatek & Dayana Yastremska
=============================
2019: Angelique Kerber is the first defending champ to lose to a lucky loser (Lauren Davis), while Davis is the first LL to reach the Wimbledon 3rd Round since 1974 (and the first ever to do so without a 1st Round bye)
=============================
2019: Barbora Strycova and Elina Svitolina reach their first slam semifinals
=============================
2019: Simona Halep is the first Romanian to win Wimbledon
=============================
=============================
2011: all eight women's singles quarterfinalists hail from Europe for the first time since 1913
=============================
2011/13: Petra Kvitova and Marion Bartoli become first-time slam singles champions, with Kvitova becoming the first slam winner born in the 1990's (1990)
=============================
2011,14 & 17: Czechs win singles (Kvitova), doubles (Peschke) and mixed (Benesova) titles in 2011.
Three Czechs reach the singles QF for the first time in 2014.
In 2017, zero Czechs reach the 3rd Round for the first time since 2009.
=============================
2012: Yaroslava Shvedova wins 24 of 24 points in the 1st set of a 3rd Round match vs. Sara Errani, completing the first "Golden Set" at a major in the Open era
=============================
2013: at 42, Kimiko Date-Krumm is the oldest woman to reach the Wimbledon 3rd Round in the Open era
=============================
2013: Sabine Lisicki is the first German woman to reach the Wimbledon final since Steffi Graf in 1999
=============================
2012/14: Aga Radwanska and Genie Bouchard are the 7th and 8th to reach both Girls and Ladies singles finals in their careers (both won the junior title, but lost in the women's final)
=============================
2014: Petra Kvitova and Genie Bouchard face off in the first slam final to feature two players born in the 1990's
=============================
2015: the first year that Wimbledon was moved back a week on the schedule, with a three-week game between the SW19 fortnight and Roland Garros
=============================
2015: at 33, Serena Williams wins her fourth straight major ("Serena Slam II") and becomes the oldest woman to win a slam singles title in the Open era
=============================
2016: play took place on the Middle Sunday for the first time since 2004
=============================
2016: at 34, Serena Williams becomes the oldest woman to win a slam singles title in the Open era
=============================
2016: Serena Williams ties Steffi Graf's Open era record of 22 major singles titles, and becomes the second woman (w/ Navratilova) to surpass 300 career slam MD victories
=============================
2017: at 37, Venus Williams is the oldest Wimbledon finalist since Martina Navratilova in 1994
=============================
2017: Garbine Muguruza is the first player to defeat both Serena and Venus Williams in slam singles finals
=============================
2017: Ekaterina Makarova & Elena Vesnina defeat Chan Hao-ching & Monica Niculescu 6-0/6-0 in the doubles final. It's the first WD slam final double bagel since 1971, and the first at Wimbledon since 1953.
=============================
2018: Garbine Muguruza loses in the 1st Round, the earliest exit by defending champion since 1994
=============================
2018: no Top 10 players reach the Wimbledon QF for the first time in the Open era, while not Top 4 players reach the Round of 16 at SW19 for the first time ever
=============================
2018: two Germans (Kerber & Goerges) reach the singles semis for the first time at a slam since 1993, and the first at Wimbledon since the 1931 final
=============================
2018: Barbora Krejcikova & Katerina Siniakova become the first duo to sweep the RG/WI doubles titles since 2003
=============================
2018: Angelique Kerber is the first player (other than Venus Williams) to defeat Serena Williams in *two* slam finals
=============================
2019: the final set tie-break (at 12-12) rule goes into effect at Wimbledon
=============================
2019: at 15, Coco Gauff becomes the youngest ever Wimbledon qualifier, and the youngest to reach the Round of 16 since 1991
=============================
2019: at 33, Barbora Strycova becomes the oldest first-time slam semifinalist in the Open era
=============================
2019: Elina Svitolina becomes the first Ukrainian to reach a slam semifinal
=============================
2019: at 37 years and 291 days, Serena Williams becomes the oldest women's slam singles finalist in the Open era
=============================
2019: at 62, Martina Navratilova becomes the oldest Wimbledon champion by winning her fifth career Invitation doubles crown
=============================
"Two years ago I lost to Serena and she told me maybe one day I would win. Here I am!" - Garbine Muguruza (2017)
=============================
2010: 1999 semifinalist Mirjana Lucic-Baroni plays in her first Wimbledon since 2000
=============================
2012: Prince Charles visits Wimbledon for the first time since 1970
=============================
2014: Timea Bacinszky plays in her first Wimbledon since 2010
=============================
2014: Martina Hingis plays in her first Wimbledon MD matches (in WD and MX) of any kind since 2007
=============================
2016: Ash Barty plays her first post-sabbatical slam matches
=============================
2017: Victoria Azarenka plays her first slam as a mother
=============================
2017: Petra Kvitova plays her first Wimbledon since hand surgery after a home invasion knife attack
=============================
2018: Maria Sharapova plays in her first post-suspension Wimbledon
=============================
"I can't believe I am standing here with another 'Serena Slam'!" - Serena Williams (2015)
"To all the moms out there, I was playing for you today. And I tried." - Serena Williams (2018)
=============================
2010: Justine Henin's final Wimbledon. She injured her elbow in her final match, a loss in the last of a 25-match head to head series with fellow Belgian Kim Clijsters. The win gave Clijsters a 13-12 edge. Henin retired for the final time after losing in the 2011 Australian Open.
=============================
2011: on Day 7, Venus and Serena Williams lose on the same day at Wimbledon for the very first time. They'd won nine of the previous eleven Ladies singles titles.
=============================
2012: Venus Williams suffers her first 1st Round defeat at Wimbledon since 1997. She would have another until 2019.
=============================
2012: Kim Clijsters' final Wimbledon
=============================
2012: Esther Vergeer loses in the WC doubles, marking the first time she doesn't reach a slam final in her career. After winning a 3rd/4th place consolation match, she never plays at another major.
=============================
2013: Venus Williams misses her first Wimbledon since her 1997 debut at age 17
=============================
2013: zero Russians reach the 4th Round of a major for the first time since the 2000 Wimbledon, ending a 51-slam streak
=============================
2013: Marion Bartoli's final slam
=============================
2013: Brit Elena Baltacha's final Wimbledon (and final slam MD appearance). Baltacha retired in November, and married her coach Nino Severino that December. She was diagnosed with liver cancer in January '14, and died the following May at age 30.
=============================
2014: Li Na plays the final match of her career
=============================
2015: Zheng Jie's final slam appearance (WD). In 2008 at Wimbledon, Zheng was the first Chinese woman to reach a slam singles semifinal.
=============================
2016: Ana Ivanovic's last Wimbledon, and Daniela Hantuchova's final appearance in a major
=============================
2017: the final Wimbledons for Martina Hingis (except for maybe more Invitation doubles) and Jelena Jankovic (it appears), and the last slam appearances by Tsvetana Pironkova (maybe) and Jiske Griffioen (definitely)
=============================
2018: Aga Radwanska and Lucie Safarova's final Wimbledons
=============================
2019: zero Russians reach the 3rd Round of a major for the first time since the 2000 Roland Garros, ending a 76-slam streak
=============================
2019: Diede de Groot's 25-match, 9-title streak in slam wheelchair singles/doubles play ends in the singles final at the hands of Dutch countrywoman and doubles partner Aniek Van Koot
=============================
"It has always been a part of my personality to be different. I actually love that part of my game, you know: being able to have something different. At the end of the day, when the spectators were looking at ten matches, they will remember this girl that was doing something different." - Marion Bartoli (2013)
[2010]
Petra Kvitova saves 5 MP vs. Kaia Kanepi in the QF to reach her first Wimbledon semifinal
[2015]
Serena Williams is down a double-break at 3-0 in the 3rd set vs. Heather Watson in the 3rd Round. Watson gets within two points of the win, but Williams gets the victory and goes on to win the title.
[2015]
Martina Hingis & Sania Mirza rally to take the title from 5-2 down in the 3rd, saving 3 MP vs. Ekaterina Makarova & Elena Vesnina in the final
[2016]
Serena Williams is down a break at 2-0 in the 3rd set in a 2nd Round match vs. Christina McHale. Williams gets the win, then wins the title.
[2019]
In the 2nd Round, Elina Svitolina trails Margarita Gasparyan by a set and 5-4, coming within two points of loss. But Gasparyan begins to severely cramp a game later and retires before the end of the 2nd set, while still leading the match. Svitolina goes on to reach her first career slam semifinal.
"I knew I had to play my best tennis against Serena. It’s my second chance [in the final]. I’m the next German after Steffi to win, it’s amazing." - Angelique Kerber, after winning the final (2018)
=============================
2012: Heather Watson records the first win (1st Rd. def. Benesova) on Centre Court by a British woman in 27 years
=============================
2013: Laura Robson defeats Maria Kirilenko, the first Top 10 win by a Brit at Wimbledon since 1998
=============================
2014-17: Jordanne Whiley (w/ Yui Kamiji) wins four consecutive wheelchair doubles titles
=============================
2015: Heather Watson is up a double break (3-0) in the 3rd set vs. Serena Williams in the 3rd Round
=============================
2016: Johanna Konta is the first British woman to be seeded in the Wimbledon singles since 1984
=============================
2016/17: Heather Watson is the first British MX doubles champion at Wimbledon since 1987, then returns to the final (w/ Henri Kontinen) in 2017
=============================
2017: Johanna Konta is the first British woman to reach the Wimbledon semifinals since 1978
=============================
2019: Jordanne Whiley plays in her first WC major since having a baby
=============================
=============================
2011: Sabine Lisicki writes a personal letter to the AELTC requesting a wild card into the main draw
=============================
2011: Iveta Benesova & Jurgen Melzer win the MX doubles title, then get married the following year
=============================
2012: Serena Williams fires 102 aces for the tournament, more than any woman *or* man during the fortnight
=============================
2013: On Day 3 (June 26), "Black Wednesday" (aka "The Radwanskian Massacre" in BackspinSpeak) sees seven former women/men's #1's upset, four walkovers and three retirements given on a day in which "slick" courts lead to numerous slips, falls and stumbles that cast a pall over the flabbergasted (and a little frightened) denizens roaming the AELTC grounds
=============================
2013: Sabine Lisicki defeats a fourth consecutive reigning RG champ at Wimbledon, ending Serena Williams' 34-match winning streak. The German previously pulled off the feat at SW19 in 2009 (Kuznetsova), 2011 (Li Na) and 2012 (Sharapova). She didn't play at Wimbledon in 2010.
=============================
2014: Vicky Duval, after receiving a diagnosis of Hodgkin's lymphoma, qualifies for the Wimbledon MD and records a 1st Round win
=============================
2014: a stumbling, lethargic and uncoordinated Serena Williams retires from her doubles match (w/ Venus Williams), and later blames the bizarre incident on an illness that made her dizzy
=============================
2015: On Day 3 (two years after the original havoc) Wimbledon experiences the hottest temperatures in tournament history
=============================
2016: Nike's "babydoll" dress causes controversy
=============================
2016: Ana Konjuh steps on a loose ball, turning her ankle at 7-7 in the 3rd set of a 2nd Round match vs. Aga Radwanska. The Croat never wins another game, dropping a 9-7 set.
=============================
2017: Bethanie Mattek-Sands dislocates a kneecap and ruptures her patellar ligament in a 2nd Round singles match vs. Sorana Cirstea. Her soul-crushing screams echo across the AELTC grounds, and her and Lucie Safarova's dreams of winning a fourth straight doubles major are instantly torpedoed.
=============================
2017: Garbine Muguruza enlists ESP Fed Cup captain Conchita Martinez as her temporary coach for the fortnight, and she ends up being the first Spanish woman *since* Martinez in 1994 to win Wimbledon
=============================
2017/18: On Day 3 (both years), it's "Flying Ant Day" at SW19 as newly-emerged insects swarm the All-England Club
=============================
2018: in the first year after the death of former Wimbledon champ Jana Novotna, two players born in her hometown of Brno, Czech Republic win titles: Barbora Krejcikova (who was also coached by Novotna) in WD and Nicole Melichar in MX
=============================
2019: Serena Williams & Andy Murray play Mixed Doubles
=============================
"Good luck with that."
Australian Open 2010-19
[Top 10]
1.Serena Williams, USA
2.Li Na, CHN
3.Victoria Azarenka, BLR
4.Angelique Kerber, GER
5.Kim Clijsters, BEL
6.Caroline Wozniacki, DEN
7.Naomi Osaka, JPN
8.Maria Sharapova, RUS
9.Ekaterina Makarova, RUS
10.Aga Radwanska, POL
[Doubles]
1.Sara Errani/Roberta Vinci, ITA/ITA
2.Bethanie Mattek-Sands/Lucie Safarova, USA/CZE
3.Martina Hingis, SUI
4.Kristina Mladenovic, FRA
5.Svetlana Kuznetsova/Vera Zvonareva, RUS/RUS
HM-Serena Williams/Venus Williams, USA/USA
[Wheelchair]
1.Esther Vergeer, NED
2.Yui Kamiji, JPN
3.Diede de Groot, NED
4.Jiske Griffioen, NED
5.Aniek Van Koot, NED
Roland Garros 2010-19
[Top 10]
1.Serena Williams, USA
2.Maria Sharapova, RUS
3.Simona Halep, ROU
4.Garbine Muguruza, ESP
5.Francesca Schiavone, ITA
6.Samantha Stosur, AUS
7.Li Na, CHN
8.Sara Errani, ITA
9.Sloane Stephens, USA
10.Lucie Safarova, CZE
[Doubles]
1.Bethanie Mattek-Sands, USA
2.Kristina Mladenovic, FRA
3.Mattek-Sands/Safarova, USA/CZE
4.Lucie Hradecka, CZE
5.Errani/Vinci, ITA/ITA
6.Latisha Chan, TPE
7.Hlavackova/Hradecka, CZE/CZE
8.Makarova/Vesnina, RUS/RUS
9.Sania Mirza, IND
10.Katarina Srebotnik, SLO
11.Gaby Dabrowski, CAN
12.Anna-Lena Groenefeld, GER
HM-Krejcikova/Siniakova, CZE/CZE
[Wheelchair]
1.Esther Vergeer, NED
2.Yui Kamiji, JPN
3.Jiske Griffioen, NED
4.Diede de Groot, NED
5.Marjolein Buis, NED
In 2010, the question was, "Why does the Serena cross the road?" Answer: (Of course) To get to the other slam.
During the fortnight, Serena even got to meet Queen Elizabeth, who visited the All-England for the first time in over three decades on Day 4 (June 24th).
While Serena seemed on top of the world and set to dominate yet another decade as the AELTC closed its gates for the summer, she wouldn't play another slam match for a year after stepping on broken glass at a night club in Germany a few days after the final, resulting in injuries that ended her season. The following March, she was rushed to an emergency room after a hematoma and pulmonary embolism (likely linked to the previous injury) that proved to be life-threatening. It'd be two years before she'd win career slam #14.
Once again, it would come at Wimbledon.
===============================================
Maiden slam finalist Zvonareva, 25, had defeated two former #1's (Jankovic and Clijsters) en route to becoming the sixth different member (following Myskina, Dementieva, Sharapova, Kuznetsova and Safina) of the Original Hordette generation to reach a slam singles final. She'd also play for the U.S. Open title later that summer, losing to Kim Clijsters in the final. Since the '10 season, no Russian other than Maria Sharapova (w/ 6 additional appearances) has reached a major final.
Later on the same day as the women's singles final, Zvonareva joined with countrywoman Elena Vesnina to play in the doubles championship. She lost there, as well.
Zvonareva would reach a career-high #2 in October of 2010, but has never done better than a 3rd Round result at Wimbledon in the nearly nine years since, a period of time during which she's missed a total of nineteen majors while taking various hiatuses from tennis to deal with injuries, as well as becoming a mother.
===============================================
There were an overabundance of "name" match-ups during the second week of the 2010 Wimbledon, from S.Williams/Sharapova to Henin/Clijsters, from Li/Radwanska to Serena/Li and, in their first (and ultimately a rare, even while they might be considered the two most prevalent faces of the decade at SW19) Wimbledon face-off: Serena and Petra Kvitova.
In the 4th Round, Williams defeated Sharapova 7-6(9)/6-4, her fifth consecutive win over the Russian since losing to her twice in 2004 (in the Wimbledon and WTA Championships finals), and in their first meeting on grass in six years. If nothing else, while this and most of their other match-ups since '04 haven't produced much drama (Williams has won them all), the atmosphere was ripe for a classic tie-break between the two.
During the 20-point seesaw battle (their first ever TB), both produced early aces, then Williams took a 3-1 lead after Sharapova (perhaps as an aftereffect from her shoulder surgery) didn't attempt an overhead shot at the net, then saw her swing volley blasted back past her for a winner by Serena. Sharapova then ran off four straight points, taking a 5-3 lead with a crosscourt forehand off the tape. Williams staved off two set points, then couldn't secure her own first. After Sharapova's third SP came and went, she saved Williams' second with a good second serve. But a DF gave Williams a third SP, on which she fired an ace to win 11-9. It was the closest Serena came to dropping a set all tournament. Williams broke Sharapova for 2-1 in the 2nd and held the advantage until the match's conclusion.
The 25th match-up between Justine Henin and Kim Clijsters turned out to be the last in their head-to-head series.
Henin opened up the Round of 16 match (their earliest meeting in a tournament since 2001, and only the second ever prior to the QF stage) with a dominating 6-2 1st set victory, but wilted as the match wore on after falling and injury her elbow. Clijsters' win improved her record to to 3-0 (all three setters) vs. her countrywoman in '10, the first full season (up til that point, at least) since both Belgians had come out of retirement to resume their careers. Henin had won eight of their final eleven match-ups prior to both leaving the game. The 2-6/6-2/6-3 win, her first over Henin in a major since 2002, gave Clijsters a final 13-12 edge in the series.
Soon after, Henin announced that she'd miss eight weeks of action due to the injury, which was eventually judged to be a partial ligament tear that ended her season early. Still, she won the tour's Comeback Player of the Year award for 2010.
Since her good first-month-back results (Brisbane and AO finals), Henin's results had been good (she won titles on clay and grass, and posted two slam 4th Round results), but things just hadn't been the same. She usually looked fully invested, except for when she looked like she really didn't know what she wanted to be invested in. Often, both Henins were on display during the same match as she attempted to be more "forwardly aggressive" by charging the net far more often than she had in her first career stint. It was a successful strategy, but at times the efforts appeared forced and anything but natural, as one could almost see her computing inside her head what coach Carlos Rodriguez had urged her to do during practice rather than *innately* knowing her next move. As a result, the natural flow of Henin's original game remained missing from the "new" version.
After losing in the 3rd Round of the Australian Open in 2011, Henin retired for good, citing continued issues with the elbow, which had still not fully healed. Here is Backspin's 2011 tribute post upon her final goodbye.
===============================================
There were a pair of surprise slam semifinalists at the '10 Wimbledon, as then-largely-unknown 20-year old Czech Petra Kvitova (#62) had survived five match points (and a 4-0 3rd set deficit) to defeat Kaia Kanepi 4-6/7-6(8)/8-6 in the QF and stake her claim to being the next young power player who'd attempt to climb into the general tour conversation; while Tsvetana Pironkova (#82) knocked off Venus Williams 2 & 3, four and a half years after she'd first made a name for herself by upsetting Venus at the Australian Open.
Perhaps *the* "off-brand" nightmare opponent for Venus during her career, the Bulgarian's variety of slices and spins forced Venus to generate her own pace, then Pironkova would then continually step in to cut off Williams' awkward shots and whack them back for winners. The win would turn out to be the first of *two* consecutive (2011 QF) wins by Pironkova over Williams at Wimbledon.
While Pironkova would lose to Zvonareva, Kvitova's win gave her the chance to test herself (in her words) "in the Serena." While her big game seemed to give her a shot, and she indeed led 4-2 in the 1st set, the Czech fell to a very in-form Williams 7-6/6-2.
A year later, Kvitova would win the Wimbledon title, fully announcing her presence as she quickly became *the* ongoing non-Williams force of the decade at the All-England Club, with her game (when in top flight, which unfortunately wasn't *all* the time, bringing all-time tennis greats to their feet with praise and awe for the lefty). Still, she's (so far) only added one additional SW19 trophy (in 2014) to her resume in the 2010's even while most fully expected early on that she might dominate Centre Court in something at least resembling a Serena-esque fashion. For various reasons ranging from illness to poor form to an off-court home invasion that made her unprepared for a deep slam run, Kvitova has rarely been able to capture the lightning-in-a-bottle SW19 moments that most predicted would shape her ongoing legacy.
After they'd also faced off at the 2010 AO, what was hoped to be the decade's biggest Wimbledon rivalry never materialized, either. Kvitova and Williams met again in the Wimbledon QF in 2012 (w/ Serena winning), but have yet to do so since in the tournament (or in any major). They've only played once at all since 2015.
===============================================
When Serena Williams won the singles title, her earlier defeat of Li Na in the QF completed something of a non-calendar "unGrand Slam" for the Chinese woman, as it marked the fourth straight major at which she'd lost to the eventual champion, following on the heels of defeats by Kim Clijsters ('09 U.S.), Serena again ('10 AO) and Francesca Schiavone ('10 RG). Li's loss to Kateryna Bondarenko in the 1st Round at Flushing Meadows ended the odd slam streak two months later.
===============================================
Coming off a semifinal run at Roland Garros, two-time slam finalist and Olympic Gold medalist (2008) Elena Dementieva saw her 46-slam appearance streak (the longest on tour) end due to a calf injury. The Russian would announce her immediate retirement after losing her final round robin match at the WTA Championships in November, later revealing that she'd decided at the start of the year that 2010 would be her final season.
Elsewhere, *both* of the Roland Garros finalists -- Francesca Schiavone and Samantha Stosur -- exited Wimbledon in the 1st Round. Schiavone was the First Seed Out, falling to Vera Dushevina, while Stosur lost in straight sets to qualifier Kaia Kanepi.
21-year old 2005 Wimbledon girls champ Aga Radwanska produced her fourth Round of 16 or better result in her first five Wimbledon MD appearances. She'd go on to do it six more times in her 13-year career at SW19, reaching the final in 2012 and playing in two semis in '13 and '15.
Marion Bartoli, previously a finalist in '07, reached her second Wimbledon 4th Round. She'd win the Ladies' title three years later in her final slam appearance. Meanwhile, Angelique Kerber notched her first career MD win in the event, reaching the 3rd Round in her eleventh MD appearance in a major. It would take the German eight more tries to win the Ladies title.
Mirjana Lucic played in her first Wimbledon MD match 2000 (and first at any major since 2002), losing to Victoria Azarenka. The Croatian had reached the semifinals at the event in 1999 at age 17, then ultimately was essentially absent from the sport for years, playing only sparingly after a harrowing personal story that saw her and her family flee an abusive relationship with her father. She would eventually play in a second slam semi at the Australian Open in 2017 at age 34, literally a lifetime (she had doubled in age) since her first.
Also, Svetlana Kuznetsova, who'd played with a virtual "dark cloud" over her head throughout the first half of the '10 season, refused to shake hands with Anastasia Rodionova after losing their 2nd Round match because of the Russian-turned-Australian's penchant for challenging too many calls during play. Afterward, Kuznetsova refused to express any regret.
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While the decade would end with the emergence of the most deep and talented group of British women the tour had seen in a quarter century, there was actually quite a bit of hope at the beginning of the 2010's, as well.
British women went 0-6 in the 1st Round in 2010, but two of the losses were by a pair of the most promising young players the Brits had seen in a generation: Laura Robson and Heather Watson.
16-year old Robson had already become (in 2008) the first Brit to win the SW19 girls title in 24 years. In 2010, in addition to reaching the girls semis, Robson was appearing (as a WC) in her second straight Wimbledon Ladies MD. She lost to Jelena Jankovic 6-3/7-6 (on Centre Court), but it didn't quiet talk of a bright future. It didn't take long for the future to appear to be rounding into form, either. Within three years, while still a teenager, Robson posted two slam Round of 16 results over a twelve-month stretch in 2012-13. She won an Olympic Silver medal while partnering Andy Murray in Mixed doubles in London in '12, played in her maiden tour singles final that September, and reached the Top 30 in July '13. But then the injuries came. First a wrist injury in early '14, since which Robson has done as much or more commentating on tennis on television as she has playing it. She hasn't won a MD match at a major since, and in 2018 had hip surgery.
At the same time, Watson (also a WC) made her slam debut at Wimbledon in '10. The junior U.S. Open champ a season earlier, Watson lost in the 1st Round to Romina Oprandi at SW19. While never quite seen as having the same potential as a young Robson, Watson's career results have been inconsistent, but her better health has made for a long stint on tour. To date, while she's never advanced past the 3rd Round stage at a major (though she did nearly upset #1 Serena Williams at Wimbledon in '15, coming within two points of the win), she *has* won three tour singles titles and reached a pair of MX finals at the AELTC, winning in 2016 to become the first British woman to do so since 1987.
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Vania King & Yaroslava Shvedova defeated the all-Hordette duo of Elena Vesnina & Vera Zvonareva in the final to claim their first major doubles title. It was the first time since 1975 that the Wimbledon Ladies' WD championship-winning pair consisted of TWO first-time slam winners (in 1975, the team of Ann Kiyomura & Kazuka Sawamatsu won). Defeating the #3, #5 and #6 seeds en route to the Wimbledon crown as an unseeded duo, the then #6-seeded King/Shvedova also claimed the U.S. Open crown at the end of the summer, defeating the #1, #2, #9 and #12 seeds on their way to winning a second consecutive slam title.
Defending WD champs Venus & Serena Willimas lost to Vesnina/Zvonareva in the QF, ending the siblings' four-slam title streak (a run which included five titles in six majors and six of the last seven in which they'd played). The Williamses had won 32 of their last 33 slam WD matches before the loss, with 32 consecutive sets won.
Bethanie Mattek-Sands, with Liezel Huber (who'd seen her longtime partnership with Cara Black recently end), reached her first career slam WD semi in her 24th MD doubles appearance in a major. She has since won five WD slams, and three in MX (where she's also won Olympic Gold). In 2019, after a career during which she's battled back from multiple injuries, she's a Wimbledon WD away from one Career Slam, and a MX win at SW19 from completing a Golden Career Slam there.
Cara Black & Leander Paes won the Mixed doubles title, defeating Lisa Raymond & Wesley Moodie in the final. It was the third slam win for the pair (who'd also won the AO in '10), Black's fifth career Wimbledon title (3 doubles/2 mixed, plus junior singles and doubles) and tenth overall career slam crown (5 doubles/5 mixed).
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Czech Kristyna Pliskova followed up wins over Sloane Stephens (QF) and Yulia Putintseva (SF) with a three-set defeat of Japan's Sachie Ishizu to win the girls title, joining with twin sister Karolina (who'd won the girls AO crown in January) to become the first sisters to win slam titles in the same season. #9-seeded Pliskova had staged a comeback from 4-2 down in the 3rd set to get the win.
With Serena's win in the women's singles and Pliskova's here, it marked the third time in the last six Wimbledons (2005/07/10) that both female singles champions had been part of a tennis-playing sister combo. Not only had either Venus or Serena won nine of eleven women's titles, but four of the junior champs since 2004 -- 2004 Kateryna Bondarenko, 2005 Aga Radwanska, 2007 Urszula Radwanska and Pliskova -- had been "tennis sisters," as well.
Girls #1 Elina Svitolina was upset in the 1st Round by Grace Min, while Kristyna's sister Karolina (#4) was taken out in the 2nd by Nigina Abduraimova. Karolina had also lost in the opening round of women's qualifying, dropping a 14-12 3rd set to Junri Namigata. She wouldn't make her slam MD debut until 2012. Genie Bouchard, a women's finalist in 2014, lost in the girls 2nd Round to Brit Tara Moore.
Stephens & Timea Babos defeated Svitolina & Irina Khromacheva in the girls doubles final. In her junior career, Babos would reach five total slam GD finals, including all four in 2010 (teaming in three with Stephens, with whom she won all but the AO that year).
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Meanwhile, after having previously announced she was committing to a full season of World Team Tennis in the summer, rumors began to swirl that Martina Hingis, having twice retired in 2003 and 2008, could be planning a second comeback. The five-time singles slam winner's participation in WTT had preceded her first comeback in 2005.
While also appearing in a number of exhibitions, former WTA #1 Hingis teamed up in the Wimbledon Invitational Ladies Doubles competition with former WD partner Anna Kournikova, herself having not played on the WTA tour since 2003. After Hingis appeared in another exhibition in Nottingham following Wimbledon, WTT founder Billie Jean King said it was her opinion that Hingis would soon return to the WTA tour as a doubles specialist.
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Brit Elena Baltacha made her ninth career appearance in the Wimbledon MD, losing her 1st Round match to Petra Martic, who rallied from a set and 5-2 down to record her first career MD win at Wimbledon. Baltacha's disappointing result had come after she'd arrived at SW19 after having won a $50K grass event and been the first British woman to reach the QF in Eastbourne since 1983 (defeating Li Na via retirement, as well as '08 Wimbledon semifinalist Zheng Jie).
In just the second year of wheelchair competition at the All-England Club (but only in doubles, as singles wasn't added until 2016), the all-Dutch duo of Esther Vergeer & Sharon Walraven took the doubles title with a win in the final over Daniela Di Toro & Lucy Shuker. It was Vergeer's second Wimbledon WD crown, after winning the inaugural title while partnering in 2009 with countrywoman Korie Homan, who was absent from Paris due to a wrist ligament injury that ultimately led to her retirement that summer.
SEEN AT THE AELTC: Queen Elizabeth...
Venus' Tina Turner-inspired "shimmy" dress...
Serena's "strawberries & cream" outfit which (gasp) dared to bring a dash of color to the lawns of the All-England Club...
You just can't keep a good Williams down. Not that anyone really ever came close to pinning Serena to a grass court at the All-England Club over the past fortnight.
Completing a somewhat "routine" trek toward her thirteenth career grand slam singles title, Williams never dropped a set in her seven matches. Thus, a Wimbledon that began with several of the more notable Russians sitting things out on the sidelines, opened with the immediate 1st Round ousters of both the Roland Garros finalists, moved forward as Justine Henin was essentially carried off on her shield (with a summer-ending elbow injury a lingering reminder of just how different things have been for her since her comeback), a frustrated Venus Williams caught an early flight out of London and Kim Clijsters continued to fail to back up her U.S. Open championship with more slam success, ended with Williams taking down Vera Zvonareva, the last of the Hordettes standing, by a 6-3/6-2 score to continue unabated her march through tennis history.
An on-the-run passing shot off a Zvonareva volley got the job done, as Williams clenched her fist and let loose a triumphant victory cry as her shot's follow-through-and-watch-the-result led her to bend down on one knee and lean on her racket.
You'll surely never see a better "gladiator-like" pose than that of Serena's at that moment. At 5-3 in the opening set, the thought was that what remained of the match seemed destined to now go Williams' way. It wasn't an erroneous assumption.
(Zvonareva) double-faulted to hand Williams a two-break lead at 4-1. It was all over but the trophy-lifting. Serena finally put the match away with an overhead smash to defend her Wimbledon Ladies singles title and pick up her fourth career crown at the All-England Club. She lost just three points on her serve in the 2nd set, and just two on her 1st serve the entire afternoon.
In the post-match ceremony, Williams, sporting Venus' earrings as well as her sister's necklace gift, reminded in-attendance family friend Billie Jean King that this win moved her past BJK's twelve career major titles on the all-time list. She even "pulled a Taylor Swift," saying that "thirteen is my lucky number."
Seriously, though, what number would Serena consider to NOT be lucky? At this point in her career, ALL of them seem to be pointing in her direction with glee.
At the same Wimbledon in which a 28-year old Roger Federer looked suspiciously like a player most definitely at least on the back side of his personal tennis mountain, its Everest-like peak now firmly in his rear-view window, the 28-year old Williams would seem to be in a situation not even remotely similar. No Sherpas need apply. She's still easily the most dominant force in the women's game, and has quite a few reasonable historical dragons left to slay. In winning a slam without dropping a set for the fourth time in her career, Serena's only somewhat precarious moment (aside from a brief 4-2 hole in the SF vs. Petra Kvitova) came in the 4th Round when Maria Sharapova held three sets points in what turned out to be an 11-9 1st set tie-break. Other than that, Williams met not a single player who seemed capable of being her equal. It's nothing new, really. For years, the maxim "if she's healthy, she's the one to beat" has applied when it came to Williams and the slams.
It looks to be in no danger of needing to be amended or altered.
* - "It's amazing you played tennis, because I can still hear you." - James Blake, admonishing ESPN courtside commentator Pam Shriver live on air for talking too loudly in the middle of a point during his match [In video, Shriver talks of Blake at the start, then Blake directs comments toward her at about 4:00]
* - "I'm obviously not pleased with this result. But I have to move on. What else can I do? Unless I have a time machine. Which I don't." - Venus Williams, after losing in the QF to Tsvetana Pironkova
* - "13 is my lucky number." - Serena Williams
* - "Love Her, Hate Her... she's the best ever." - Sports Illustrated
It's always a great thing when a young player blossoms in the crucible that is grand slam tennis. In 2011, that player was Petra Kvitova, as the Czech brought Wimbledon to its collective knees, and a horde of former champions to their feet.
Barely a year earlier, Kvitova was ranked outside the Top 50, hadn't advanced to a slam QF and had never even won a match on grass. Flashforward to 2011 and she was crowned Wimbledon champion, knocking on the door of the Top 5, and armed with a game that seemed built for multiple SW19 crowns.
Over the course of the previous year, Kvitova's potential had often been stunningly apparent, but exactly WHEN she'd put it altogether and put on a serious slam run was the question. Just weeks earlier, Kvitova had squandered a 3-0 lead in the 3rd set of her Round of 16 match in Paris against eventual Roland Garros champ Li Na, and had then lost in the Eastbourne final to Marion Bartoli. But once play began at the All-England Club, all doubts were squashed. After advancing to the QF without dropping a set (and dropping serve just once), the Czech closed out three-setters vs. Tsvetana Pironkova (leading 54-10 in winners) and Victoria Azarenka with 6-2 final sets, then dominated Maria Sharapova in a 6-3/6-4 final to become the first maiden slam champ at Wimbledon since 2004, the first Czech winner since Jana Novotna in 1998, the first lefty Wimbledon finalist since 1994 (Martina Navratilova) and Ladies champ since 1990 (Navratilova), as well as the first player born in the 1990s -- male or female -- to win a major crown.
Hers was the most buzz worthy title run of the 2010's at Wimbledon, and quite possibly at *any* of the slams during the decade. At the time, it was if the masses had witnessed the birth of the next *great* Wimbledon champ.
As the decade nears its end, Kvitova (w/ her '14 win) *has* been the only non-Serena to win multiple titles since 2010, and the only non-Williams to do so since Steffi Graf in the mid-1990's. But things haven't worked out *exactly* as many expected, nor hoped, back in 2011. Kvitova has become one of most beloved champions in the game, and still often flashes the dominant form we saw nearly a decade ago. But the internal Good Petra/Bad Petra combat remains, even when she ultimately wins matches after having been needlessly forced to three sets (earning her the "P3tra" moniker).
But along with the inconsistency, illness (her asthma has always been an issue, especially in hot and humid slam conditions) and a December '17 home invasion attack -- which avoided becoming a tragedy but nearly ended her career (emergency surgery on her racket hand allowed her to continue playing tennis, even while leaving the tips of several fingers without feeling more than two years later) -- for a time made her slam appearances more about just being able to *be* there than actually winning. That she has still yet to reach #1, after climbing as high as #2 on four different occasions (2011, '15 and twice in '19), is emblematic of the so-close-and-yet-so-far nature of a career that has been very good, but remains just this side of "great." While the first half of the 2010's made it easy to think the back half might be dominated by the Czech, Kvitova hasn't played into the second week of the fortnight since winning the title five years ago (going 4-4 heading into '19).
But Kvitova reached her first post-attack slam final at the 2019 Australian Open, and still won't turn 30 until 2020. There could still be *much* of The Petra Story left to be told, at both Wimbledon and elsewhere.
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Sharapova's appearance in the final was her first at Wimbledon since her 2004 title run, as well as her first at *any* slam in three and a half years, since her career-threatening shoulder surgery after the 2008 season. She hadn't lost a set en route to the final before falling to Kvitova in straights.
Sharapova reached five additional slam finals before her suspension in 2016, but none came at Wimbledon. Two were at the Australian Open, and three at Roland Garros. Since her 2017, return, the Russian has (so far) reached just one slam QF.
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In all, three "NextGen" players reached the Wimbledon final four in 2011: champion Kvitova, who been there the previous year, as well as 21-year old maiden slam semifinalists Victoria Azarenka (a future #1 and multi-slam winner) and later SW19 finalist Sabine Lisicki.
In a season in which Azarenka had never played better, she'd still had a hard time staying on the court due to injuries (she'd had four in-match retirements in '11). Then, in the slam in which she finally held herself together well enough to reach her first career major semifinal, she ran head-first into another young player with more game, more calm and even more potential on the grass courts -- Kvitova. The Czech defeated the Belarusian, who didn't have to wait long for her big moment. She won back-to-back majors in Melbourne in 2012-13.
Meanwhile, if not for that of Kvitova, Lisicki's would have been the story of the tournament.
A quarterfinalist in 2009, the German had missed the event in 2010 due to injury (a career-long trend) after a severe ankle injury that forced her to learn to walk again. Heading into the '11 tournament, she'd written a personal letter to the AELTC requesting a wild card and (apparently, as the letter has never been made public) talking of her love of the tournament and desire to be able to play at the All-England Club again. She was rewarded with a spot in the MD, and took advantage it by becoming the second WC (Zheng Jie '08) to reach the Wimbledon semis, and the first German woman to advance as far at SW19 since 1999, doing so while simultaneously flashing a winning smile, refreshing personality and (most importantly) a huge serve deep into the second week.
Lisicki had proven herself in the time leading up to the fortnight, sweeping through Birmingham without dropping a set after receiving her Wimbledon WC berth. But what came next was on another level. In the 2nd Round, she outlasted reigning RG champ Li Na, rising to the occasion of her back being against the wall by producing maybe the best moment of the tournament -- her game-winning back-to-back-to-back-to-back 120 mph+ serves, two for aces -- after finding herself down double MP late in the 3rd set. Possibly mentally shaken by such a display, #3-seeded Li lost five of the final six games of the 3-6/6-4/8-6 match.
A win over '10 Ladies finalist Vera Zvonareva followed, then in th QF Lisicki defeated Marion Bartoli (who'd upset defending champ Serena Williams a round earlier) under the Centre Court roof as thunder and lightning appropriately filled the air around the grounds outside. After a long week of (as always) emotional victories, Bartoli "hit the wall" in the 3rd set, double-faulting, huffing-and-puffing, shaking out her leg and taking a moment to get some additional rest by sitting on a linesperson's chair. The German's run was ended by Sharapova in the semis.
Lisicki's excitement at the '11 event didn't only come in singles, as she also teamed with Sam Stosur in doubles to defeat defending champs Vania King & Yaroslava Shvedova in the 2nd Round on their way to reaching the final.
While the German would reach even greater heights at Wimbledon two years later, reaching her only slam final, "Lisicki's Law" has continued to apply throughout the majority of her career, as injuries have continued to plague her time on tour. Still, her run of results at SW19 from 2009-14 proved to be one of the best stretches ever -- QF-DNP-SF-QF-F-QF -- for a player who never won the title.
While her ranking has hovered in the #200's in the final years of the decade, the re-appearance of Lisicki's smile -- even when the results haven't been there for her -- come the start of each grass court season has become as reliable as a sunrise.
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After having missed 51 weeks of action since her Wimbledon title run in '10 due to foot lacerations after stepping on broken glass (and then later emergency surgery to remove an embolism), two-time defending Ladies champ Serena Williams had returned the previous week in Eastbourne.
As it turned out, after Serena and sister Venus had dominated Wimbledon for eleven years (combining to win nine titles, with five other final appearances), both lost in the 4th Round on "unlucky" Day 7, leaving SW19 on the same day for the first time... and making the defeat of world #1 Caroline Wozniacki on that same Monday the "B" story for the day in the women's draw. "Definitely not our best day," Venus said in understated fashion after exiting immediately on the heels of her sister.
#7-seed Serena, who'd recorded her 200th career slam match win in the 1st Round, posted a win over Simona Halep (a three-setter in their first career meeting, in an event that was the Romanian's SW19 debut) and knocked off #26 Maria Kirilenko, but #9 Marion Bartoli proved to be too much to handle.
Bartoli, a Ladies finalist in '07, had defeated Kvitova in the Eastbourne final heading into Wimbledon, but had to scrape and claw (and everything else) her way to her Round of 16 meeting with Williams. She saved three MP vs. Lourdes Dominguez Lino in the 2nd Round (during which she incurred a coaching warning), then a round later staged a comeback from a break deficit in the 3rd set vs. #21 Flavia Pennetta, winning 9-7 in the deciding set. In that one, the Pastry rode an angry wave of arguments with chair umpire Mariana Alves and her own parents (she ordered her father Walter to leave his seat in the stands) to win in 3:09 as she and the Italian combined for 110 winners. It took Bartoli four MP to finally win, and she did so on a Pennetta DF.
Bartoli defeated Williams 6-3/7-6 after Serena had saved three MP to reach a 2nd set TB, then another soon afterward. Bartoli finally won on MP #5 with a service winner to claim what proved to be her only win in four career match-ups with Williams. A round later, Bartoli saved three MP to force a 3rd set against Lisicki, where her journey finally ended.
At the time, I wrote, "Even as the younger generation begins to assert itself more in future slams, if there's a veteran player who could hit her peak and 'steal' a slam over the next season or two, it might just be Bartoli." Right on cue, she won Wimbledon two years later, the retired without ever playing another major.
The loss dropped Serena out of the Top 100 for the first time since August 2006, as she emerged from London ranked #175 (her lowest since November 1997 at age 16). She'd be back in the Top 100 a month later, and reached the U.S. Open final later that summer. A year later, she'd win her third title at SW19 in four years.
Meanwhile, after taking part in a bit of history -- her 2:55 2nd Round match vs. 40-year old Kimiko Date-Krumm was the first full women's match played under the Centre Court roof, which had debuted in '09 -- Venus experienced a severe case of deja vu. A year after losing to Tsvetana Pironkova in the QF, she fell once again to the Bulgarian in the Round of 16. By the same 6-2/6-3 score, no less.
As for Pironkova, rarely had a player been so regularly disappointing for fifty weeks a year, but also so surprising for the other two. Not only did she defeat Williams at this Wimbledon, but she also upset '10 finalist Vera Zvonareva in the 3rd Round (also by a 6-2/6-3 score!), who'd defeated *her* in the semis a year earlier.
It would take Pironkova another three and a half years before she'd finally win her first (and only) tour singles titles, a '14 Sydney triumph over Angelique Kerber. She *would* manage to extend her slam success beyond the borders of London, reaching a Round of 16 at the U.S. Open in' 12 and the QF at Roland Garros in '16. A shoulder injury stopped her slam appearance streak at 49 in '17, ending her season early. She became a mother in April 2018, and has not played since.
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Draw notes:
* - for the first time since 1913, all the Wimbledon quarterfinals hailed from Europe
* - a year after going 0-6 in the 1st Round, three Brits reached the 2nd Round. Laura Robson (again a wild card) defeated Angelique Kerberin the 1st Round, then lost to Sharapova a round later. Elena Baltacha fell to Peng Shuai in the 2nd, while future GBR Fed Cup captain Anne Keothavong was Kvitova's 2nd Round victim.
* - Canadian Rebecca Marino, a rising Top 100 player in '11, on the heels of her first career 3rd Round result at a major in Paris, lost in the 2nd Round to Roberta Vinci. Se's yet to play in the event since. After losing in the 1st Round of the Australian Open in '12, Marino took a break from the sport due to mental and physical fatigue that lasted most of the season. Her next slam appearance was in Melbourne in '13. After losing her opening match there, a month later she retired from the sport, not to return until late 2017, when she went public with her ongoing battle with depression. Marino had immediate success on the ITF circuit, but has yet to play another MD match at a major, though she did participate in qualifying for both the Australian Open and Roland Garros in '19.
* - Jelena Dokic lost a 1st Rounder to Francesca Schiavone, 6-4/1-6/6-3, in what proved to be the Aussie's final Wimbledon appearance. As a teenager, Dokic has pulled off one of the tournament's most memorable upsets with a 1st Round takedown of #1-ranked Martina Hingis on June 23, 1999 in just her third career slam MD appearance. She reached the QF that year at age 16, a year later was in the semifinals, and then followed that up with two more Round of 16 results in 2001-02. Dokic reached at least the Round of 16 in 7 of 12 majors starting with the '99 Wimbledon. Controversy and familial discord, which included a history of mental and physical abuse that was later detailed in her 2017 autobiography, dogged her entire career, though she still managed to win six WTA titles and rank as high as #4. After several lean years, during which she failed to appear in 15 of 16 slam MD from 2005-08, Dokic put on an exciting and heartwarming QF run in 2009 at the Australian Open.
In the 3rd Round, three years after defeating a then-teenaged Tamira Paszek in a 10-8 3rd set at Wimbledon, Schiavone found herself in tooth-and-nail combat with the Austrian yet again. This time, though, it was Paszek who survived, even as Schiavone twice served for the match at 8-7 and 9-8. At 3:41, the match came up just five minutes short of becoming the longest women's contest in Wimbledon history, as Paszek won an 11-9 3rd set.
* - Sania Mirza played in her final Wimbledon singles competition. Four years later, the doubles specialist (three months after climbing into the #1 ranking) would finally win her maiden slam WD title (w/ Martina Hingis) at SW19.
* - 2010 girls champion Kristyna Pliskova made her slam MD debut as a qualifier, losing to Marion Bartoli in the 1st Round
* - Magdalena Rybarikova retired from her 1st Round match vs. Victoria Azarenka, her fourth of what would be seven consecutive opening round exits at the All-England Club. The Slovak's injury-plagued career would reach its zenith in London six years later with a semifinal run. From 2008-18, though, Rybarikova escaped the 1st Round just twice.
* - Jelena Jankovic lost in the 1st Round to Maria Jose Martinez-Sanchez, her worst Wimbledon result since her debut in 2004 (and her worst at a slam since the '05 RG). While the Serb reached the Round of 16 five times at SW19, Wimbledon remains the only major at which the (retired... not quite retired?) former #1 never reached the semifinals.
* - Aga Radwanska's 2nd Round loss to Czech Petra Cetkovska, a match in which the Pole led 6-3/5-4 & 30/30, proved to be her worst career result at Wimbledon, only matched by the 2005 girls champion's final SW19 appearance as a pro in 2018.
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Czech women had a hand on all the women's titles at Wimbledon, as in addition to Kvitova's win in the Ladies singles Czechs won titles in the doubles and mixed, as well.
Czech Kveta Peschke and Slovenian partner Katarina Srebotnik, who entered as likely the best active duo *without* a slam WD title, finally commandeered the winner's circle, claiming their maiden doubles crowns at SW19 with a win over Sabine Lisicki & Samantha Stosur. Srebotnik, who'd previously won five MX titles, had been 0-4 in slam WD finals.
Peschke & Srebotnik became doubles co-#1's after Wimbledon, and held the position for ten weeks. While still an active player at age 38 in 2019, Srebotnik has yet to win another slam crown. Meanwhile, Peschke continues to play into her early 40's, and returned to the Wimbledon doubles final in 2018 with Nicole Melichar. Her '11 WD crown remains her only slam win.
Czech Iveta Benesova won her maiden slam crown with Austrian Jurgen Melzer, defeated Elena Vesnina & Mahesh Bhupathi in the MX final. It proved to be the only slam title for Benesova, who reached the Top 25 in singles in 2009. She and Melzer were married in September 2012.
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15-year old Ashleigh Barty won the girls title, becoming the first Aussie to take the junior title in London since Debbie Freeman in '80, and the first Australian girl to win any slam singles crown since Jelena Dokic at the U.S. Open in '98. The #12 seed, who defeated Madison Keys in the 3rd Round, then Vicky Duval in the QF, put away Russian #3-seed Irina Khromacheva 7-5/7-6 in the final. It was Khromacheva's only slam singles final of her junior career, during which she played in five in doubles (going 3-2 from 2010-12 while reaching at least one GD final at all four majors).
Luke Saville won the boys title, making the '11 Wimbledon event the first time Australians had swept the junior singles titles at a slam outside the AO since the 1968 Roland Garros.
Eugenie Bouchard & Grace Min won the doubles, defeating Demi Schuurs & Tang Haochen in the final. Schuurs was playing in her third consecutive junior slam final, going 1-2.
In the third year of wheelchair competition at Wimbledon, Esther Vergeer claimed her third doubles title, as she and Dutch countrywoman Sharon Walraven successfully defended their crown with a win in the final over another all-Dutch duo, Jiske Griffioen & Aniek Van Koot. Vergeer had previously won six slam doubles crowns with Griffioen.
The title would be Vergeer's last at Wimbledon. She's suffered her only career defeat at the event in the doubles semifinals in 2012 in what was her final slam competition.
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With still no announcement imminent about her possible return to the WTA tour, Martina Hingis once again participated in the Wimbledon Legends competiton. Teaming with Lindsay Davenport, the pair won the title, defeating Martina Navratilova & Jana Novotna in the final.
At the conclusion of the network's weekend coverage, NBC announced the end of its 43-year relationship with Wimbledon, which would shift exclusively to ESPN in the U.S. in 2012. While the quality of the network's coverage had gone down significantly in later years, with time-delayed and "embargoed" matches making a mess of things, NBC's traditional coverage of the event had a one time been groundbreaking, with the creation of the "Breakfast at Wimbledon" concept, the commentary of Bud Collins, and the first live coverage of the men's final in 1979 serving to revolutionize coverage of the sport in the United States. And, of course, there was also the iconic theme music...
SEEN AT THE AELTC:
Bethanie Mattek-Sands (courtesy of Lady Gaga's designer), on and off court...
Venus'... romper?
In a rare moment of tennis certitude, on the 183rd day of 2011, a champion was born on Centre Court.
Sometimes when a player LOOKS like she's got "it," that indefinable quality that makes a champion, she really does. On occasional instances, such as when a young Russian validated all previous whispers of her virtues seven years ago in southwest London, the gestation period before such an achiever's "coming of age" is a short one. In firing the first salvo for her tennis generation by claiming the Wimbledon Ladies title in a straight sets 6-3/6-4 victory today over Maria Sharapova (that aforementioned Russian), 21-year old Czech Petra Kvitova proved that she, too, has "it."
Tennis legend Billie Jean King has always believed that "pressure is a privilege" in the sport, and that any time a player manages to put themselves into position to do something great on a grand stage they should never allow themselves to be sold short, to exit the day without having given themselves their best chance to be successful and/or performed at the peak of their abilities. When the dust finally settles at the end of a grand slam event, according to BJK's principle, regret should never be part of the conversation. Over the last few years, though, that's pretty much been ALL there's been when it's come to the latest generation of women's tennis stars who'll soon be called upon to carry the burden of the WTA tour on their shoulders once the last of the previous group of champions is gone. ...
Enter Kvitova, who was more than worthy of the pressure she had the privilege to thrive under on this day. It was apparent that the Czech was determined to not be the next name on the "failed" list, but the first on an entirely new one altogether. Rather than fumble around trying to determine what it would take for her to be a slam champion, Kvitova simply went out and became one. No Shakespearean drama necessary. No handwringing required. For some players, slam titles can come after years of work, trial and error, and heartbreak. For others, the path to ultimate success is recognized as a straight line that is the shortest distance between two points. It comes naturally. It's part of their DNA. Sometimes it's just that simple.
In 2004, it was Sharapova who cut through all the pretense and was bold enough to play Serena Williams face-up in the Wimbledon final, defeating her at her own game with fearless groundstrokes and big serves and the inner belief that there was no reason why she SHOULDN'T win. Of course, now at age 24, the Russian has already lived through the sort of tough times that often put an end to such thinking. Before this weekend, she hadn't reached a slam final in three and a half years, the result of rotator cuff surgery in October '08 that took her out of the sport for ten months and wreaked havoc with her serve (as well as the confidence its strength had always infused into the rest of her game). But, deep inside, that old feeling was still there. "I always felt like I had a lot better things in me," she said the other day. Finally, this spring on the European clay, Sharapova rediscovered the confidence in her ability to call upon her old fearless game in a match's crucial moments. She won in Rome, then made the semis at Roland Garros. In reaching her first Wimbledon final since she won the title at the All-England Club seven years earlier, the next logical step seemed to be to re-assume her place atop the game by lifting another Venus Rosewater Dish.
The "x" factor for this final, though, was that no one could be sure of what was precisely going to happen inside the Czech in her first grand slam final. As Kvitova has spent more and more time in the spotlight over the past year, her game has been described as notoriously streaky. But it's also positively screamed that it was capable of very big things. From the huge lefty serve to the powerful groundstrokes and natural inclination toward aggressiveness on the court, the shy Czech sports a game that is anything but bashful. When she's managed to avoid the sort of walkabout moments that cost her a set in the semifinals against Victoria Azarenka, she's often been an overwhelming presence on court this year. As she lined up to serve to open the Wimbledon final against world #6 Sharapova, she did so with the knowledge that she'd already managed to defeat -- dominate, really -- the likes of #2 Kim Clijsters, #3 Vera Zvonareva, #4 Li Na and #5 Azarenka this season.
From the outset of the match, a constant series of moments arose which served to test Kvitova's mettle. On nearly every occasion, the Czech responded with preternatural calm in the heat of battle. ...
(Kvitova) played with a cleanliness that tends to make her unstoppable. With only three errors in her column for the set, the Czech was giving away virtually nothing, and preventing Sharapova from taking anything, either. At the conclusion of the set, after going through the entire fortnight by releasing sudden Rottweiler-esque (well, if they made six-foot tall Rottweilers, that is) barks as punctuations to moments of triumph, Kvitova chose to coolly walk to her chair with a clenched fist.
She knew her work wasn't finished. And with such tennis luminaries as King, Martina Navratilova (her childhood idol, and the last lefty to win Wimbledon), Jana Novotna (the last Czech), Ann Jones (another lefty SW19 champ) and others watching from the Royal Box, Kvitova wasn't about to get ahead of herself.
With the championship within her grasp, (Kvitova) didn't slow down to think about the moment. Using the pressure of her serve and big groundstrokes to coax errors out of Sharapova, Kvitova held for 5-3. Then, serving at 5-4, the Czech would provide nary a single crack in her game's foundation for the Russian to even think about taking advantage of. With the title on her racket, Kvitova stepped to the baseline and raced to a 40/love lead.
At triple match point, she'd managed to get to within a single shot of the Wimbledon title without firing an ace. "Inconceivable!," one might have though prior to the match. Yet, there she stood. As I watched from Backspin HQ, in my head, I couldn't help but think, "Come on, hit an ace. It's be a great way to end it." Then Kvitova reared back and blasted her first ace of the day, right down the service "t." THAT is how you do it, folks.
In the process of the ceremony in which she was handed the Ladies championship dish, Kvitova managed a smile and wave to Navratilova, who was dutifully using her cell phone to film the greatest moment (so far) of the career of a player she'd inspired when she was a child. A few seats down the row, Novotna applauded her countrywoman, maybe wondering what it must feel like to win a Wimbledon title on your FIRST attempt in the final, but also surely knowing the pure joy of what it feels like to actually win one at all. Following the on-court interview conducted by the BBC's Sue Barker, the former slam titlist ('76 RG) asked Kvitova, "Ready for your lap of honor?" "Yes, I'm ready," the Czech happily chirped back. Not that she really needed to say it... her performance in the final on this Saturday had already spoken volumes about her.
In her celebration after match point, one could never quite tell if Kvitova actually kissed the Wimbledon lawn, as her shielding hands hid the visual evidence. Truthfully, it's probably a good thing that the secret remains between her and the turf. After all, one gets the feeling that this is only the beginning of what will be a beautiful friendship.
* - "I'm playing for so many years, so this is, we say, the 'cherry on the cake.'" - Petra Kvitova
* - "She was a total champion. (Yet) she is just an ordinary girl. She's standing with both feet on the ground. And I think that's very, very important for success in these matches." - David Kotyza, Kvitova's coach
* - "It's just been a long, arduous road. To stand up, still, is pretty awesome." - Serena Williams, on her return after a nearly year-long absence following foot lacerations, two operations, clots in her lungs, and emergency surgery to remove an embolism
* - "To this day, I don't know. It's like the biggest mystery next to the Loch Ness Monster." - Serena Williams, on how she sliced her foot at a Munich restaurant in July '10
* - "During the injury process, I was setting a lot of timetables for myself, and I never really met those goals. I don't think there's a certain point where you say, 'Oh, I'm back.' I mean, I don't have that much self-esteem. I don't think anyone really does." - Maria Sharapova
* - "Well, you just have to have to shut up and stop complaining because you have a pretty damn good life." - Victoria Azarenka, on her new perspective once she talked with her grandmother when she'd briefly considered quitting the sport
* - "I think her potential is now!" - Amelie Mauresmo, on Kvitova
* - "I don't think this is the only time she'll win here. It's very exciting. A new star." - Martina Navratilova, on Kvitova
* - "I don't want to change, I just want to be like everyone else. I'm nothing special." - Petra Kvitova
(Yeah, after that, we sort of *expected* what happened in London.)
Putting on a serving display the likes of which women's tennis history had never seen before, Williams quite literally served her way into the Ladies championship match. The most dominating single shot in women's tennis -- probably ever -- saved Serena's skin in matches against Zheng Jie (3rd Round, w/ a Wimbledon record 23 aces helping to stave off the '08 semifinalist's 3 BP for a 3-1 lead in the 3rd) and Yaroslava Shvedova (4th Rd.) in tight, long 3rd sets (9-7 & 7-5, respectively) when the rest of her game was letting her down. But she successfully tightrope-walked over those dual precipices of elimination, and by the time she played defending champion Petra Kvitova in the quarterfinals, a more-focused Serena was barely giving an inch in ANY part of her game. Against reigning AO champ Victoria Azarenka in the semis, even a fine version of the Belarusian's game wasn't enough to take a set off Williams, who fired 24 more aces (a NEW Wimbledon record) in just *two* sets. She entered the final as a heavy favorite. It was easy to casually understand why Serena had made it so far into the fortnight, for power and destruction were her game, and such a two-headed hydra was hard to miss.
Though Aga Radwanska rallied to force a 3rd set in the final, Williams pulled away to win 6-1/5-7/6-2, picking up her third Ladies title in four years and becoming the first woman over 30 years of age to win Wimbledon since Martina Navratilova in 1990. While defeating the #2 (Azarenka), #3 (Radwanska) and #4 (Kvitova) seeds in the event, she launched a record 102 aces in the tournament, more than even any player in the *men's* draw with its best-of-five set format.
Serena then joined with sister Venus to win the doubles, too.
After losing to Razzano in Paris and then sweeping the singles and doubles at the AELTC, Williams would go to win both crowns at the Olympics (also played at Wimbledon) a month later, as well as the U.S. Open singles and WTA Finals. Her RG win the next year gave her three slam titles out of four, and by the end of 2013 she'd won four of six.
Her 2012 runner-up result would be as close as Aga Radwanska would ever get to achieving her slam dream. The seventh player to win the SW19 girls title *and* reach the Ladies final during her career (Genie Bouchard would become the eighth two years later) -- only Martina Hingis and Amelie Mauresmo have won both -- she was the first Polish player to reach a slam singles final. After entering the fortnight as the only player ranked in the Top 15 without a slam semifinal appearance in her career, Radwanska was one set away from the title and the #1 ranking.
She called the experience the "best two weeks" of her life.
What I said about her (and The Radwanska, the "malevolent entity"/alter ego/sidekick/protector/chaos maker that seemed to accompany her climb to the top) back in 2012...
" As far as (Serena's) final opponent, 23-year old Pole Agnieszka Radwanska, goes, though, it takes a little patience to figure her out. Ranked #3 in the world, and with a shot to elevate to #1 by winning the Wimbledon title, A-Rad's game is characterized by a secret bag of tricks and magic dust, directed by a steel-trap, creative mind that sometimes seems to expertly build a solid skyscraper out of something that often resembles a pile of flimsy popsicle sticks. Unless you watch closely. In reality, Radwanska is something of a mad genius, throwing in spins and variety on what seems like a whim, but is really more of a well-thought out plan (little "p") that she manages to imagine and then figure out how to actualize... with the entire process sometimes occurring between the time a ball leaves the face of her racket and when it reaches that of her opponent.
Of course, A-Rad is something of a "hydra," too. On one hand you have Agnieszka. But, on the other, you have The Radwanska. An alter ego of tremendous power and drive, and one with a Plan (capital "P") for world domination, by any means necessary. And darned if It didn't almost pull it off at this Wimbledon, too. Since Aga stepped back a bit from her father's coaching following last year's Wimbledon, ultimately working with Polish Fed Cup coach Tomasz Wiktorowski, she's added some power to an accurate serve. And The Rad provides the willingness to pull it out in big moments. After years of too-defensive, wait-for-an-error play, since last summer, she's shown an occasional knack for stepping into one of the rallies she often controls with her wide array of shots and actually ending it with a winner rather than hoping for a mistake on the other side of the net. Oh, sometimes The Rad side of Aga enjoys pulling an opponent around on a string until she shoots herself in the foot out of frustration -- just ask Angie Kerber -- but it's the unpredictability of precisely when The Radwanska will strike with something bigger that has enabled A-Rad to wrap up a series of big titles over the past year and quickly climb up the rankings after having seemed to "stall out" somewhere around #10-12 at this time last year. In The Quarter That Time Forgot, Radwanska kept her head down, did what she's learned to do, and both plans worked out quite nicely for the first-time slam finalist and her "other self." Well, to a point. In many ways, the final WAS a "two against one" affair. It just wasn't fair... for Agnieszka or The Radwanska. Serena didn't really give them too much of a chance, though the two DID find a way, after a rough start, to make things interesting before the day was through. "
A year later, "The Rad" seemed to break away from Aga, seeking to cause wanton destruction anywhere it could.
In the end, even Aga herself wasn't immune to Its wayward aims.
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Late in the day, under the roof, Serena returned to win the Ladies' Doubles title with Venus, defeating the Czech pair of Andrea Hlavackova & Lucie Hradecka 7-5/6-4 in the final. Venus closed things out with an ace. It was their 13th slam doubles championship as a duo, and their 5th at Wimbledon. With Serena's earlier singles victory added in, she and Venus both joined the "5 & 5 Club," becoming the sixth and seventh women to win at least five Wimbledon crowns in both singles and doubles.
The Williams sisters' win over #6-seeded Hlackova/Hradecka had been preceded by a semifinal dispatching of #1-ranked Liezel Huber & Lisa Raymond. The unseeded siblings also defeated the #4 (Kirilenko/Petrova), #10 (Kops-Jones/Spears) and #13 (Mattek-Sands/Mirza) seeds.
The sisters went on later that summer to win the Olympic Gold in the London Olympic tennis event held at the All-England Club, as well.
It was their third Gold in women's doubles, and (w/ Serena's singles Gold) tied them with Arantxa Sanchez Vicario as the overall tennis medal leaders since the sport's reintroduction to the games in 1988, with four each. Brit Kitty McKane won five during in the original incarnation of the sport's Olympic past, which ended in 1924. In 2016, Venus picked up #5 -- a MX doubles Silver -- to tie McKane for the all-time lead, and move into sole possession of first for the current run.
Defending WD champs Kveta Peschke & Katarina Srebtonik had lost in the 2nd Round to Flavia Pennetta & Francesca Schiavone. Hlavackova/Hradecka's win over Sara Errani & Roberta Vinci in the QF prevented what would have been the only slam match-up involving all four members of the great Italian Quartet that ultimately joined forces to win three Fed Cup crowns and claim two slam singles titles, with each member of the group playing in at least one slam singles final (after *no* Italian woman had done so before them). They *did* meet twice in regular tour events in their careers, with Pennetta/Schiavone winning on hard court in the Dubai 1st Round in 2011, and Errani/Vinci doing so on clay in the 2012 Barcelona final.
Raymond teamed with Mike Bryan in mixed doubles to claim her eleventh and final slam crown (6 WD, 5 MX), picking up a third title at Wimbledon to go with her '99 MX and '01 doubles wins. She and Bryan defeated Elena Vesina & Leander Paes in the final, the 22nd of 23 slam finals (she'd also reach the Wimbledon MX final in '13 w/ Bruno Soares) in her career.
In another chapter of a running tiff throughout the slam season in '12, Vesnina and Liezel Huber met on the court once more. They'd initially been involved in a heated dispute in the Australian Open QF over whether a ball had bounced twice before being hit by Huber on a MP held by Vesnina & Sania Mirza, a denial which infuriated the pair and brought partner Raymond to tears (she later apologized to Mirza & Vesnina for Huber's actions). Since then, Vesnina had already ended Huber's slam run in the Roland Garros mixed competition.
In the Wimbledon doubles QF, Vesnina & Ekaterina Makarova faced off with Huber & Raymond and, wouldn't you know it, Huber again found herself on the spot, denying being hit by a ball during the match. Vesnina had fired a shot directly at Huber, who'd been standing near the net, and she'd blocked it back with the throat of her racket. She and Raymond soon won the point. Video confirmed Huber's account, and she later said of the Russian, who'd again vociferously complained to the umpire, "She’s clearly moody and was fighting with her dad on the court, and if you are not having a good day I would also try and find a way to win -- we all want to win."
Huber & Raymond won the match, then lost to Venus & Serena in the semis. In the MX semis, Vesnina & Paes defeated Huber & Bob Bryan.
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A year after thrilling a bevy of Wimbledon greats, who pretty much all declared that she'd eventually join them on the sport's mythical elevated stage of honor, defending singles champion Petra Kvitova was bounced in the QF by Serena Williams, 6-3/7-5. Williams had her "game face" on two years after defeating the Czech in the semis, winning 19 of 24 serve points in the 1st set in their first meeting since that match in 2010. Kvitova had just one break point chance in the match, which Williams promptly saved with a big serve.
They haven't met in a slam since.
Kvitova had barely made the date to face off with Williams, having been forced to rally from a 6-4 and a 2nd set break deficit vs. Francesca Schiavone in the 3rd Round. After a rain delay at 6-4/4-4, Kvitova had emerged from the lockerroom to win nine of eleven games and get the victory.
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In the 3rd Round, Kazakhstan's Yaroslava Shvedova produced the first "Golden Set" at a major in the Open era, winning the opening set against Sara Errani without losing any of its twenty-four points. After her 6-0/6-4 victory, she admitted that she hadn't even realized what she'd done as it was happening. The only other Golden Set in WTA/ATP main draw competition was by Bill Scanlon in a regular men's tour event in 1983.
Venus Williams' doubles title run with Serena had been something of an "in-tournament" comeback for the then 32-year old, who was still learning how to deal with her September 2011 diagnosis of the rare autoimmune disorder Sjögren's syndrome, which causes fatigue and joint pain (and explained the limited durability and aching body issues that Williams had experienced for a while). She'd withdrawn from the U.S. Open that summer, citing the diagnosis, and the '12 Wimbledon was just her second slam since.
After a 2nd Round loss in Paris, she fell 6-1/6-3 in the 1st Round at SW19 to Elena Vesnina in a listless and physically lethargic outing (she opened with five straight service faults, and served at under a 40% clip for the match). It was her first one-and-out performance at Wimbledon since her debut in 1997. This was also the first time she'd been unseeded at the event since her maiden appearance. Naturally, as was the case often at the start of the decade, Williams was questioned about whether it would be her last Wimbledon. "I don't have time to be negative," she said, "It doesn't feel good."
Williams wouldn't reach the second week of a major again until 2015, but would then do so ten times over a 12-slam stretch from 2015-17 that included her ninth appearance in the Ladies singles final at SW19 (of course, she found Serena waiting there for her). As the 2019 version of Wimbledon begins, Venus is set to make her 22nd appearance at age 39.
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Draw notes:
* - for the third time in her last three appearances (DNP 2010) at Wimbledon, '11 semifinalist Sabine Lisicki upset the reigning Roland Garros champion, defeating #1-seeded Maria Sharapova in the Round of 16. The German had previously knocked off Svetlana Kuznetsova in 2009 and Li Na in 2011.
* - Victoria Azarenka, who'd reached #1 after winning her maiden slam title at the Australian Open in January, advanced to her second straight Wimbledon semifinal, where she lost to Serena Williams. Maria Sharapova had returned to #1 for the first time since shoulder surgery with her win at Roland Garros, and topped the SW19 draw for the first time ever.
Tsvetana Pironkova, after SF and QF results the past two years, was unseeded in the '12 Wimbledon draw. She faced off with Sharapova in the 2nd Round. Despite leading 3-0 and 4-1 in the 1st set, and holding SP at 5-2 and 5-4, as well as three more at 6-5 40/love, Pironkova dropped the opening set in a TB that began with her missing an open court shot at the net on the very first point. Despite incoming darkness, the match continued until Sharapova had taken a break lead at 3-1 in the 2nd set.
Day 2 of the match began with Sharapova DF'ing and dropping serve. In the 2nd set TB, Sharapova had three more DF and saw Pironkova prevail, knotting the match despite being 1-for-8 on BP chances in the first two sets. The Russian righted things in the 3rd, winning the set at love.
Her loss in the next round to Lisicki opened the door for Azarenka, whose semifinal result allowed her to reclaim the #1 ranking after Wimbledon. She stayed there for thirty-two weeks until she was replaced by Serena Williams the following February. Serena held the spot for thirty one months until Angelique Kerber took over the spot in September 2016.
A month later in '12, the three-headed monster that dominated the top of the women's game in the early years of the 2010's did what they were *supposed* to do: they swept the medal stand at the London Olympics, with Serena picking up Gold, Sharapova Silver and Azarenka Bronze (Vika also took home MX Gold w/ Max Mirnyi).
* - for her part, Kerber had her breakthrough Wimbledon performance in 2012. After losing in the 1st Round in three of her four previous appearances, the German reached the semifinals. It was her second major semi in less than a year, following up on her maiden final four result at the U.S. Open in '11 (which had come after four consecutive slam 1st Round exits).
In the QF, Kerber led countrywoman Lisicki 6-3/5-3 and held 3 MP, only to see Lisicki win a TB (taking the 9-7 breaker after Kerber had stopped a really mid-stream on SP to challenge a call). Kerber was up a break twice in the 3rd, but it was Lisicki who served for the match at 5-3 after Kerber's DF had given her a break lead. Kerber then broke Lisicki in back-to-back service games and won the set 7-5 on her fifth MP to improve to 5-0 in their head-to-head.
Lisicki has still yet to defeat Kerber, losing all six match-ups.
Kerber came up short of the final vs. Radwanska in the semis, but four years later would succeed at SW19 where the Pole had failed.
* - meanwhile, 2011 girls champ Ash Barty made her Wimbledon debut. The 16-year old lost a 1st Round match to Roberta Vinci.
2010 SW19 girls doubles champ Sloane Stephens also made her Wimbledon debut. She defeated qualifier Karolina Pliskova, also making her debut at the All-England Club, in the 1st Round, then outlasted Petra Cetkovska in a three-setter a round later. In the 3rd set, Stephens fell behind love/30 in four straight service games, but held serve each time to win 6-3. She lost a round later to Lisicki, dropping the 1st after having served at 5-4, then failing to convert a BP at 1-1 in the 3rd. After squandering the opportunity, Stephens was broken for 3-1 as Lisicki ran off nine straight points en route to a 6-2 win.
* - Timea Babos, who'd joined with Stephens to win the Wimbledon girls doubles in 2010 (the third of four GD slam finals she reached that year, winning three), recorded her first career slam MD singles victory in just her second MD appearance in a major, a win over Melanie Oudin. Babos would go on to win multiple slam doubles titles and reach doubles #1. Seven years later, though, the Hungarian has still only advanced to the 3rd Round of singles in a major once in 27 career MD appearances.
* - Austrian Tamira Paszek reached her second straight QF, rising once again during the grass court season. She saved two MP in the 1st Round vs. #7 Caroline Wozniacki (who went 0-2 on grass after having declared, "I believe I can win Wimbledon," exiting SW19 with her worst slam result since her '07 slam debut at RG), and saw Yanina Wickmayer serve for the match in the 3rd Round. In all, at Wimbledon and Eastbourne in '12, Paszek recorded three Top 10 wins. Five of her eleven career Top 10 victories came on grass, including three at Wimbledon between 2007-12.
* - qualifier Mirjana Lucic-Baroni, a Wimbledon semifinalist in 1999, won her first MD matches at SW19 since 2000. In the 2nd Round, she upset #9 seed Marion Bartoli 6-4/6-3. The Croat's 3rd Round finish was significant, as Lucic produced only three better slam results in her career: her Wimbledon and Australian Open semis eighteen years apart (1999/2018), and a Round of 16 at the U.S. Open in 2014.
In 2013, Bartoli would win the Wimbledon Ladies title.
* - an unseeded Kim Clijsters played her final Wimbledon, having previously announced that she would retire following the U.S. Open after injuries had once again become an issue in the Belgian's "second career" after coming out of retirement in 2009 and adding three slam titles to the one she'd won in her previous stint on tour.She lost in the Round of 16 to Kerber, 6-1/6-1, after having gotten two wins over seeded players (#18 Jankovic 1st Rd., #12 Zvonareva 3rd Rd.).
Clijsters would end her career with a 3rd Round exit at the U.S. Open later that summer.
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For the British woman, a new day dawned in 2012. They just didn't know it yet.
Laura Robson (again a WC) lost in the 1st Round to Francesca Schiavone (but then joined w/ Dominic Inglot to upset MX defending champs Benesova/Melzer in the 2nd Rd., and a month later won MX Silver w/ Andy Murray at the Olympics), while Elena Baltacha (vs. Petra Kvitova) fell in the 2nd. Heather Watson won a 1st Round match over Benesova in a contest that was belatedly moved to Centre Court late in the day. She was the first British woman to win a match there in twenty-seven years.
In the 3rd Round, though, the Tennis Gods (or was it something else?) had the last laugh, as Watson fell 6-0/6-2 vs. Aga Radwanska -- on Centre Court -- in a match in which the Pole's string of 20 straight games with an UE finally ended at 6-0/4-0.
But the big news (eventually) was that this was the first Wimbledon as a Brit for Australia-born Johanna Konta, who'd finally become a British citizen in May after her family had moved to the U.K. from Down Under when she was 14. Now representing GBR, Konta was given a MD wild card and the 21-year old made her slam debut at SW19 vs. Christina McHale. After McHale had twice failed to serve out the match in the 3rd set, play was suspended at 7-7. In her third attempt, McHale finally served out the match -- coming back from love/40 down -- to win 10-8 in the deciding set.
Konta would lose in the 1st Round at SW19 every year from 2012-15. But in 2017 she reached the semifinals, becoming the first British woman to do so since Virginia Wade in 1978. She climbed into the Top 5 that July. With a previous slam SF at the Australian Open in 2016, Konta also reached the semis at Roland Garros in 2019, the same season she led the British Fed Cup team to its greatest success in 26 years.
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A year after winning the girls doubles, Genie Bouchard took the girls singles crown at the All-England Club, becoming the first Canadian (girl or boy) to be crowned a slam singles champ. She defeated Elina Svitolina in a 6-2/6-2 final, and also defended her doubles win (teaming with Taylor Townsend, a year after winning with Grace Min) with a final victory over Belinda Bencic & Ana Konjuh.
Soon after, Felip Peliwo took the boys title to become the *second* Canadian junior champion. Two years later, Bouchard would reach the Ladies final.
She wasn't the only Canadian girl to achieve in the singles, either. Francoise Abanda had upset top-seeded Townsend (who swept the AO singles/doubles crowns in January) in the 3rd Round, as well as Donna Vekic in the QF, to reach the semis, where she lost to Svitolina.
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In what turned out to be her final slam appearance, Esther Vergeer failed to reach a final in a major for the first time in her career. Having won the Wimbledon's wheelchair doubles title in each of the competition's first three years, Vergeer (partnering Marjolein Buis, after winning the previous two titles with Sharon Walraven) fell in the semifinals to Jiske Griffioen & Aniek Van Koot. The Dutch pair, runners-up to Vergeer/Walraven in '11, then went on to win the title with a victory over Brits Lucy Shuker & Jordanne Whiley in the final.
Vergeer's final slam match came in the form of a consolation 3rd/4th match-up in which she and Buis defeated Walraven and Annick Severans.
As is the case every four years, due to the 2012 Paralympics competition that summer the U.S. Open wheelchair event was not held. In the London games, Vergeer swept the singles (def. both Griffioen and Van Koot) and doubles (w/ Buis, def. Griffioen/Van Koot) Golds to close out her unprecedented wheelchair career, giving her a WC tennis record seven Paralympic Golds (4 singles/3 doubles) and one Silver (doubles).
Still not having announced a comeback bid, Martina Hingis was back once again in the Wimbledon Legends competition, teaming with Lindsay Davenport to defend their title. For the second straight year, the duo defeated Martina Navratilova and Jana Novotna in the final.
SEEN AT THE AELTC:
Prince Charles, visiting the AELTC for the first time since 1970, and Camilla Parker Bowles...
Pippa and Kate Middleton...
Grace Jones...
The Beckhams (and Mr.Laver)...
Players under towels, hiding from the cold...
Maria Kirilenko's (then) fiance, hockey living legend Alexander Ovechkin...
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If you had to depend on any woman in the world to win a single tennis match on any given day or night, your best bet, after all these years, after all the ups-and-downs and great days and bad, after all the controversy and, lately, some uncharacteristic losses on big stages, and after all the over-eager pronouncements that she might never win another major championship, that woman would STILL be one Miss Serena Williams... the new (and "old") Wimbledon champion.
Again. After all these years.
"Well, I'm just happy. I'm so happy to be playing. I'm so happy to be on the court. I feel like this is where I belong. I mean, maybe I don't belong in a relationship. Maybe I don't belong somewhere else. But I know for a fact I do belong on this tennis court." - Serena Williams
Coming into this Wimbledon, Williams had gone through the ringer and come back out since her last slam win in London two years ago. An unfortunate trip to a German restaurant, which she left with a bloody foot that would ultimately require two surgeries. The resulting hematoma and embolism that placed her in the hospital, endangered her career and put her life in jeopardy. And then there's the mysterious "other things" that both Serena and Venus have talked about that the younger Williams has had to deal with during the period that we still don't know the actual details of (perhaps we'll find out one day in her tell-all autobiography?). She'd flashed her old dominant form on hard court and clay over the past year, only to crash out of slams in uncharacteristic ways, being blistered in a final by Sam Stosur in New York, then ousted in the 1st Round in Paris by Virginie Razzano in her worst slam result ever.
After Roland Garros, I piped in with the thought that Serena losing so early in Paris likely assured that she'd be winning Wimbledon the following month. At least that was how the old Serena would have handled things. But was the 2012 version of her "the old Serena," or just an "old" Serena. 30-year old tennis players haven't always been treated kindly by tennis over the past two decades, and Williams had surpassed the big "3-0h" since she won her thirteenth slam crown at the All-England Club in 2010.
At this Wimbledon, though, after some of the same sort of growing pains that have accompanied so many of her other slam victories, we found out which Serena we were dealing with... as did the rest of women's tennis. And, as usual, it was an awesome sight to behold.
Serena got to within a single point of a 5-3 lead (in the 2nd set), but Radwanska's backhand down-the-line winner on game point turned the tide of the set. As Serena tightened just a bit, The Radwanska grabbed hold of Aga's racket and began to try to work Williams' last nerve. A Serena error game Radwanska her first break point of the match. Another long Serena shot made the score 4-4.
Suddenly, Agnieszka put her Rad shoes on. She started controlling rallies with her fascinating combination of spins, pinpoint accuracy and anticipation leading to a sudden winner of her own or a shot that simply twisted Serena into an error. Maybe all those melons The Rad had destroyed at Radwanska Abbey over the past two weeks didn't die in vain, after all. As Williams began to be forced into mistakes, A-Rad took over. Rather than being handed the runner-up plate, she was forcing a 3rd set. She held for 6-5, then went up 30/love on Williams' serve. Serena committed a backhand error and fell behind 15/40, then saw her "sure" win slip away and become a 7-5 set in Radwanska's favor. Over her last four service games, the Pole lost a total of four points.
Williams was tired of foolin' around. Where every Radwanska opponent at this Wimbledon had allowed her to keep them down, Serena came out firing even BIGGER shots. In game #4, she opened with an ace. Then another. And another. And another. Four thundering blows to the jaw of The Radwanska and the (still) flat-footed Aga. The score was 2-2 (in the 3rd), but for all intents and purposes it was all over save for the child-like glee with which Serena would later hold the Venus Rosewater dish.
Serving for the championship, her first in twenty-four months, Williams slugged another ace and a service winner to get to 40/15 and double match point. She only needed one point. She didn't end things with the expected ace, but her backhand winner from the baseline more than did the job. With the title secure, Williams fell onto her back and put her hands over her face. After losing just three points on serve in the final set, Serena won 6-1/5-7/6-2.
After the match, Radwanska (or was it PARTLY The Rad?) smoke with a hoarse voice and underlying emotion. They called the fortnight the "best two weeks" of their lives. After putting up a valiant effort against a force even greater than the combination of their own, what was evident from their play in this match was the same thing that we've been forced to learn over the past year: The Radwanska -- and A-Rad -- will live to fight and slay another day.
In the end, Serena's predictability won out over Radwanska's stealthily unpredictable nature. After the worst grand slam of her life, Williams came back and grabbed maybe her most precious... the one that came after she'd questioned whether its like would ever come her way again. When she's questioned, she provides an emphatic answer. When she's counted out, she's in. When it's said that it's over, she says that it has only just begun. Try to push her out the door, and she pushes it open just a little wider. Climbing into the stands to hug her family, friends and team after her win, it was apparent that THIS title will stand out from many of her others, when all is said and done.
While a WTA world with The Radwanska sitting atop it might have been a wild notion to ponder (or fear?), Serena made sure it never got to that point. "Woman of Steel Saves the World" is how the Daily Planet might declare it in Metropolis. But, really, Williams is just "Serena"... she only seems larger than life sometimes because no else who has come this way before has ever been quite like her.
After once resembling a juggernaut of fierceness, Serena now embodies the notion that whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger. And considering her history, think about THAT for a moment.
Oh, brother... err, I mean Sister.
* - "I don't have time to be negative. It doesn't feel good." - Venus Williams, after her 1st Round loss
* - "Good luck with that." - Victoria Azarenka, on the rumored notion of Wimbledon using a decibel meter to measure on-court grunting with the goal of eventually forcing players (women) to be quieter during matches
* - "(I'm) too old. Too old to play the game I want to play physically. I've put my body through enough strain and everything. The whole lifestyle, that's what I'm dealing with now, the lifestyle I've had for the last 15, 20 years. It's been great. I wouldn't change a thing." - Kim Clijsters
* - "Today I laid a golden egg." - Yaroslava Shvedova, after her "Golden Set"
* - "These are the best two weeks of my life." - Aga Radwanska
* - "The older I get, the better I serve." - Serena Williams
At the end of a Wimbledon notable for its many shocking results, it was France's Marion Bartoli who was left standing in 2013. For some, it was the most "shocking" development of them all. But for Bartoli, it was an act of vindication.
For the 2007 Wimbledon finalist, whose 47-slam wait for her maiden crown broke the mark set by Jana Novotna at SW19 in 1998, her Ladies title run was the final result (nearly literally, as she played just three more matches before retiring following a loss to Simona Halep in Cincinnati 40 days after winning Wimbledon, citing "pain everywhere" after less than an hour of play due to the physical wear and tear of her career) of a familial sports experiment dreamed up by her father Walter, a doctor who sought to create a tennis champion through a series of unconventional training techniques that brought condemnation and mockery, but also a fitful turn with the Venus Rosewater Dish.
Through it all, Bartoli embraced the eccentricities that made her stand out, and often led to her being the object of derogatory comments. In the end, she stood tall and got the last laugh.
It was a long, slow climb, filled with raised eyebrows and skeptical asides. But rising above it all -- including coaching changes, barely-mediocre results and a wave of upsets that decimated the Wimbledon draw -- Bartoli found the opportunity for her moment in the spotlight and, quite simply, strangled the life out of it by putting together just the tenth women's run at SW19 pulled off without dropping a single set. Afterward, she was the epitome of class, poise and comfort in her own skin, letting cutting, often misogynistic and/or uncouth comments about her appearance slide off her back with nary a worry to be seen, and proving to be the most adult presence in a sea of immaturity (and worse). In a final bit of irony, Bartoli's slam title came at the one major that the player -- Monica Seles -- whose game hers was most patterned on was never able to win, as she defeated a German (Sabine Lisicki) in the final, something Seles was unable to do (losing to Germany's Steffi Graf) in her single Wimbledon final in 1992.
Since retirement, Bartoli has continued to be a magnet for rumors and headlines. Mysterious health issues, large weight losses and gains, and multiple whispers about and at least one serious attempt at a comeback (aborted because of injury issues) to professional tennis never resulted in her return. She's been most visible in recent years conducting on-court interviews for French television during Roland Garros.
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Bartoli's opponent in the final, Sabine Lisicki, was no stranger to success at SW19.
Her blend of power serving and big forehands was the sort of game perfectly suited to the lawns of Wimbledon. Unsurprisingly, her best slam results traditionally came at the All-England Club, previously topped off before this slam by a semifinal run two years earlier after being granted a wild card (she wrote a personal letter talking about her affection for the tournament as a way of asking for the spot in the draw) after having battled back from a 2009 ankle injury that left her on crutches for six weeks, off tour for five months and virtually having to learn to walk again. It was an emotional connection that Lisicki, the first German slam finalist in fourteen years (Steffi Graf - '99 Wimbledon), had (and still has) with the tournament. By 2013, she'd become a favo(u)rite of the Brits, as well, due to her bubbly air, easy smile and avowed love affair with England and Wimbledon itself (wearing a glittery Union Jack t-shirt to press conferences to wear her emotions on her proverbial sleeve, and saying things like, "There is no better feeling in the world than to have so much support on that beautiful Centre Court").
Almost everything about Lisicki's tennis in these years was emotional. She cried when she lost, and couldn't stop grinning (or crying happy tears) when she won. She'd left slams on a stretcher, and come charging back to erase a deficit and collapsed in a heap after losing a big lead. At least once, more than one of those had even occurred in a single match.
Showing an ability to defeat virtually any foe on the grass of the All-England Club, Lisicki defeated six Top 50 players en route to the final, including a fourth straight reigning Roland Garros champion (Serena Williams, ending her career-best 34-match winning streak while overcoming a 3-0 3rd set defict) in her last four appearances in London, and then brought the usually stoic Aga Radwanska to (likely) unseen (lockerroom) tears after a 9-7 3rd set win in the semifinals.
It was in that moment of defeat in the semifinals, that the curtain was pulled back on Radwanska's psyche. As a former girls champ at the event, it was no secret that her connection to Wimbledon was far different than that at any other slam. A year after having reached the final, and come within a set of defeating Serena to become the first Polish slam champ and new #1 player in the world, it seemed as if 2013 was "her time." With all the upsets in the women's draw, the #4-seeded Radwanska was suddenly the "favorite" in a semifinal field that included the #15, #20 and #23 seeds.
She'd defeated the other highest ranked player (#6 Li Na) in the quarterfinals (on MP #8), her third straight three-set win (3rd-M.Keys/4th Rd.-Pironkova). In the semifinal vs. Lisicki, Radwanska led 3-0 in the 3rd, but saw Lisicki ramp up her serve and come roaring back. She served for the final at 5-4, only to see Radwanska break on her third BP. Radwanska got within two points of the win at 6-5, but Lisicki held. After the German took a break lead at 8-7, she served for the final and immediately led 40/love.
After winning 6-4/2-6/9-7, Lisicki was predictably overwhelmed with emotion. Radwanska was, as well. Only hers was negative, and she did all that she could to keep it under wraps until she was able to reach the cover of the lockerroom. It resulted in a quick, no-look post-match handshake at the net that didn't come off quite as badly in real time as it did in photo captures, but it is what it is. The image is still used today as a perfect display of what has been determined to be "being a poor sport" in the aftermath of defeat.
In reality, Radwanska was breaking inside. After having battled through some big-hitting opponents and weary (and wrapped) legs to get back to the semis, coming up just a bit short of getting the chance to improve upon her appearance in the 2012 final that she'd called the best moment of her career and life, it was likely as clear to her as it was believed by many that the '13 Wimbledon *was* her best shot at ever breaking through to win a major title. The landscape and circumstances could never be as perfectly constructed for her to win a slam as they were that fortnight.
Yet, still, it didn't happen.
The "non-handshake" wasn't an immature reaction to disappointment, it was an attempt to maintain the appearance of strength in the face of the most crushing moment of her tennis career. Radwanska reached three more major semifinals before retiring in 2018, including another at SW19 (2015), but no opportunity was as brilliant as the one she was unable to capitalize on in London in 2013.
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A season after her career was teetering on the edge of oblivion due to four life-threatening blood clots in her calf, having slipped outside the Top 250, lost the support of the Flemish Tennis Federation, and couldn't even get an invite into Wimbledon qualifying (despite being a former Girls champ at SW19), Kirsten Flipkens -- pulling energy from the support of friend Kim Clijsters (who served as her part-time coach) and a group of "believers" so small she could count them on one hand -- had her career's greatest singles run beginning in late 2012 and carrying over into the summer of 2013. The Belgian qualified for the U.S. Open, won her first singles title, reached the AO Round of 16, rose into the Top 20 and defeated 2011 Wimbledon champ Petra Kvitova (who was ill and needed in-match treatment) to reach the Wimbledon semifinals.
Flipkens injured her knee in her SF loss to Bartoli, but rose to a career high #13 in August. She hasn't reached the second week of a major since, but has become a successful doubles competitor and (occasional) singles achiever, especially during the grass court season.
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June 26, 2013 was quite possibly the wildest day in the 127-year history of Wimbledon. On Day 3 -- aka "Black Wednesday," aka "The Radwanskian Massacre" in the language of Backspin -- seven former women's and men's #1's exited the tournament, four matches were walkovers, and three singles contests ended in retirement (+ another in doubles) as shocking results multiplied and slick courts led to a series of falls, slips and stumbles all over the AELTC grounds. Six Top 10 seeds saw their Wimbledons unceremoniously come to a close on the day, as did one unbelievable record by possibly the greatest player to ever play the game.
Former #1 Victoria Azarenka pulled out after having been injured in her 1st Round match, while fellow past #1's Maria Sharapova, Ana Ivanovic, Caroline Wozniacki, Jelena Jankovic, Lleyton Hewitt and Roger Federer (ending his record streak of thirty-six straight grand slam quarterfinals) all lost.
Draw notes:
* - the "highlight" of the June 26 carnage was the match that featured '04 champ Maria Sharapova and 20-year old Portuguese qualifier Michelle Larcher de Brito.
Earlier in the day, Sharapova had slipped and fallen on the grass during a practice session, eerily foreshadowing her later experiences. During the Russian's 2nd Round match with Larcher de Brito, Sharapova fell multiple times, injuring her hips and legs, and once doing a split on the baseline very similar to the one that had injured Azarenka two days earlier. Sharapova, as many players did that day, complained to the chair umpire about the surface being "dangerous," and left the court for medical treatment.
But Sharapova's biggest foe on the day wasn't the court, it her firebrand opponent, who'd finally pull off the "big league" victory on a major stage that her precocious talent had long seemed to insist could be possible a few years earlier, well before she'd even celebrated her sweet sixteenth birthday. A one-time child phenom, Larcher de Brito (a Nick Bollettieri pupil) was once renowned for her on-court decibel level. While Sharapova's falls planted seeds of doubt in her head that manifested themselves with every step she took, noticeably making her tentative in her footwork and shots, and sapping most of the ever-present confidence that had always made no lead safe for an opponent over the years, the hard-driving, fist-pumping Larcher de Brito (ranked #131) looked like a star dying for an opportunity to shine.
Showing a seeming immunity to the pressure of the situation her hard shots and aggression had suddenly put her in against one of the best players in the game, the youngster brought a rare vision of frustration to the Russian's face as her errors piled up and her opponent refused to bend. Larcher de Brito often jumped on Sharapova's first and second serves, then didn't blink when she had every opportunity to do so late in the 2nd set when the Russian carved out several break point chances that could have led to a 3rd set showdown. Larcher de Brito won 6-3/6-4, but then lost a round later to Karin Knapp.
Larcher de Brito's once promising career never really panned out, though. Her 3rd Round result equaled her best slam result at RG four years earlier, and which she matched in '14 at SW19. Her '14 Wimbledon run was her last appearance in a slam MD, as she lost in qualifying six times in the years that followed. She often played in relative obscurity on the challenger circuit late in the decade and had what amounts to a "remember her?" sort of existence in the sport. She never improved upon the ranking high (#76) she set at age 16, and never finished a season in the Top 100. Now 26, she hasn't played a pro match since March 2018. She's never officially retired, but was last known to be coaching at a club in Florida in late '18.
* - a year after losing in the 1st Round, Venus Williams missed Wimbledon due to a back injury. Today, 2013 stands as the only year since her 1997 debut that Williams has not appeared in the SW19 MD. Svetlana Kuznetsova's absence was the only time she's not competed since her debut in 2003.
* - en route to her (so far) only QF result at Wimbledon (the only slam she's played every year since 2012), Sloane Stephens flashed both the "Future" (super & focused) and "Current" (sometimes-wayward, often questionable) versions of her self.
In the 3rd Round against Petra Cetkovska, Stephens rallied from 2-0 down in the 3rd set to win six of the final eight games; then against Monica Puig in the Round of 16 she countered the Puerto Rican's game #1 break in the 3rd by winning six games in a row to close out the victory. In the QF, though, Stephens (down 4-5, 40/40 in the 1st) emerged from a 2 1/2-hour rain delay (which had been pushed for by Bartoli, drawing the ire of the the crowd) flat, dropping the set and going on to lose 6-4/7-5..
* - making their Wimbledon debuts in 2013 were '12 girls champ Genie Bouchard (def. #12 Ana Ivanovic and reached the 3rd Rd.), '12 girls finalist Elina Svitolina (lost 1st Rd. to Bartoli), future Ladies champ Garbine Muguruza (2nd Rd.), Madison Keys (3rd Rd.), and future Olympic Gold medalist Monica Puig (4th Rd.).
Karolina Pliskova recorded her maiden slam win, defeating #13-seeded Nadia Petrova before falling to Petra Martic a round later.
Kaia Kanepi reached her second SW19 quarterfinal, a run highlighted by a 2nd Round win over #7 Angelique Kerber in which the Estonian recovered from a set and 5-1 TB deficit to win in three.
Meanwhile, after back-to-back QF results, Tamira Paszek was upset in the 1st Round by Alexandra Cadantu. The Austrian has never advanced beyond the 2nd Round of a major since, and hasn't appeared in a slam MD since 2016. She recently played in a pair of '19 challenger events, her first pro tournaments in nearly a year.
* - Arantxa Rus lost in the 1st Round to Olga Puchkova, giving her seventeen consecutive losses to tie the tour record set by Sandy Collins from 1984-87.
* - The 51-slam streak that had seen at least one Russian reach the Round of 16 came to an end
* - Kimiko Date-Krumm, 42, recorded her final slam MD victories, defeating Carina Witthoeft and Alexandra Cadantu before losing to Serena Williams in the 3rd Round. She was the second oldest woman to win a MD match at Wimbledon, behind 47-year old Martina Navratilova in 2004, and the oldest to reach the 3rd Round in the Open era. The Japanese vet, who reached AO, RG and WI semifinals between 1994-96 before retiring and then returning in 2008 after a nearly 12-year absence, went 0-6 in her remaining slam MD matches. She then lost four times in the opening round of slam qualifying before retiring for the last time in 2017.
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The British women were just 1-6 in the opening round, but the "1" was Laura Robson. The 19-year old, finally in the MD on merit and not needing a WC, opened with a 1st Round upset of #10 Maria Kirilenko, the first Top 10 win by a British woman at Wimbledon in fifteen years. After a three-set win over Marina Erakovic (who served at 6-1/5-4) in the 3rd Round, Robson lost a close 7-6/7-5 4th Round match to previous SW19 quarterfinalist Kaia Kanepi. It was Robson's second slam Round of 16 in a year, having also reached the U.S. Open 4th Round in '12 (and 3rd Round at the AO, a career best at the slam).
The win over Kirilenko was Robson's fourth Top 10 win in ten months, with three coming in slam play. To date, she's not recorded another. She's not recorded a slam MD win since the '13 U.S. Open, either, after suffering a wrist injury at the '14 Australian Open. She missed the next five slams, and has never regained her past form, winning two challenger titles in 2016-17 but notching just one tour-level MD victory since 2013: a win over lightly regarded Ghita Benhadi in Rabat in 2016 in the Moroccan's only career WTA MD appearance. In 2018, Robson underwent hip surgery. Since her #46 finish in '13, these are Robson's season-ending rankings: 951-558-220-251-435.
The 2013 Wimbledon was also the final appearance at SW19 by Elena Baltacha. The 30-year old lost in the 1st Round to Flavia Pennetta in her twelfth MD appearance at the All-England Club. She lost in U.S. Open qualifying later that summer, and retired from tennis in November. She married coach Nino Severino a month later. Baltacha, who'd been diagnosed eleven years years earlier with the liver condition condition primary sclerosing cholangitis, was diagnosed with liver cancer in January '14, six weeks after she and Severino were married. She died on May 4th of that year.
The charity Rally for Bally was founded in her honor, with proceeds split between the Royal Marsden Cancer Charity and the Elena Baltacha Academy of Tennis, which she and Severino had founded in 2010 to help disadvantaged children play tennis. In 2015, the Aegon Open in Nottingham named its championship trophy after her, and the Elena Baltacha Foundation continues to do a remarkable job of keeping Baltacha's image and memory alive in England as well as on worldwide social media.
Five years after her death, Elena Baltacha is inspiring a new generation to play tennis https://t.co/HLpD4BcyOu
— judy murray (@JudyMurray) April 20, 2019
Remembering the wonderful Elena Baltacha today. 5 years. pic.twitter.com/BKDrn0E5mP
— She Rallies (@SheRallies) May 4, 2019
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Longtime friends Hsieh Su-wei & Peng Shuai took the Ladies doubles title, the maiden slam crown for both. Hsieh was the first player from Taiwan to win a major title, while Peng was the fifth from China. Born four days apart and friends since they were thirteen, Hsieh & Peng had won WTA titles together as far back in 2008. But in 2013-14 their reach was greater. Before winning at SW19 on grass, they won in Rome by ending top-ranked Errani/Vinci's 31-match clay winning streak. They'd go on to win a second slam in Paris in '14, and reach the season-ending tour championships final in 2013-14, going 1-1. They would be off-and-on partners, breaking up but finding their way back together, until 2018, finally reaching a point where they could no longer tolerate playing with one another after getting into a disagreement about the services of a shared athletic trainer.
Their opponents in the final were 17-year old Ash Barty, the '11 Wimbledon girls champ, and Casey Dellacqua, who were playing in their second of three '13 slam finals. The Aussies went 0-3.
20-year old Kristina Mladenovic picked up her first slam crown, winning the MX with Canadian vet Daniel Nestor. The duo had been finalists at Roland Garros, and Nestor, 39, noted that he'd wanted to play with Mladenovic, a former junior #1 who'd reached seven WD finals with seven different partners over the previous year (winning 5), because he felt that she would be a top singles player one day and that he caught her "at the right time," before she'd start winning four and five singles matches at slams rather than the one or two she was then, and no longer had time for mixed doubles.
Mladenovic/Nestor defeated #2 seeds Mirza/Tecau in the QF, then #1-seeded defending champs Raymond/Soares to claim the title, saving two MP in the latter match-up in the final.
In the first Wimbledon wheelchair competition without Esther Vergeer, Jiske Griffioen & Aniek Van Koot successfully defended their doubles title, defeating Yui Kamiji & Jordanne Whiley in the final to claim their fourth consecutive slam title. They'd go on to win the U.S. Open to achieve a Grand Slam that season. In the 2014, Kamiji & Whiley would also win all four majors, ultimately winning six of seven overall.
16-year old Swiss Belinda Bencic defeated Taylor Townsend in a three-set final to win the junior singles crown to become the first girl to put up back-to-back slam wins (w/ RG) since Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova won the 2006 U.S. Open and '07 AO. The last time the accomplishment was pulled off in a single season was 2003, when a young Kirsten Flipkens won Wimbledon and U.S. Open junior crowns. Bencic's run improved her junior mark on the season to 36-0.
Czechs Barbora Krejcikova & Katerina Siniakova defeated Anna Kalinskaya & Iryna Shymanovich to win the second of three consecutive slam titles in 2013 (Krejcikova also reached the AO final with a different partner). Five years later, the duo would complete the same Paris/London sweep by winning the women's doubles at Roland Garros and Wimbledon.
Finally, after several seasons of speculation, Martina Hingis' ultimate comeback plans were revealed (as well as, more than likely, why she'd waited so long to make an official decision).
In March 2013, Hingis was announced as a member of the new class of Newport enshrinees into the International Tennis Hall of Fame, as the five year waiting period since her last pro match had finally made her eligible. With her earlier career's legacy rightly given its eternal place in tennis history -- an honor that would have been delayed by a pre-induction comeback -- it cleared the way for her long-awaited, and long rumored, return. That spring, Hingis undertook a brief stint as the coach of Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, but a disagreement about tournament preparation led to the end of the relationship after just two months.
At Wimbledon, Hingis again took part in the Legends competition, winning it for the third straight year with Lindsay Davenport. They defeated Jana Novotna & Barbara Schett in the final. In July, Hingis was inducted into the Hall of Fame, then shortly afterward announced that she was coming out of retirement. Her partner would be Daniela Hantuchova during the summer North American hard court season, during which Hingis also played World Team Tennis, earning MVP honors and leading the Washington Kastles to the league title.
Hingis' sec-, err, third career would turn out to be HoF-worthy in its own right.
She added four WD slams to her career totals, as well as six in MX, completing a Career Mixed Slam with Leander Paes in 2015-16. She won her first Olympic medal, a WD Silver with Timea Bacsinszky in 2016, as well as the WTA Finals in '15 with Sania Mirza. For a short period of time, Hingis & Mirza formed a virtual doubles "dream team," winning seven titles, including three straight majors and the "Sunshine Double" (Indian Wells/Miami '15) as they rose to co-#1 in doubles for 31 weeks in 2016. Hingis returned for a brief solo stint in the top spot in late '17. In all, she won 27 doubles titles in her final comeback, wrapping up her career by winning nine with Latisha Chan during the 2017 season.
Hingis & Chan shared the #1 ranking for 24 additional weeks from late '17 until March '18, some five months *after* she'd already retired from the sport.
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SEEN AT THE AELTC:
Bethanie Mattek-Sands wears Google Glass...
Anna Wintour...
Serena's pre-match sports jacket...
At a Wimbledon highlighted by dramatic upsets, including seven former men's and women's #1's exiting on "Black Wednesday" three days into the fortnight, many observers spent the past week bemoaning the lack of "big" stars in the tournament's latter stages. But that one of the two remaining women -- 28-year old Frenchwoman Bartoli or 23-year old German Sabine Lisicki -- would end this final Saturday having experienced a new career high, something that in no way seemed even a faint likelihood two weeks ago, actually made the Ladies' championship a rather intriguing affair for anyone who cared to actually pay attention. The last two women to defeat Serena Williams at SW19 (Bartoli in '11, and Lisicki this year), the finalists both entered the final seeking to further spread their wings.
While Bartoli, the '07 Wimbledon runner-up whose best has never been something to trifle with, has often been most known for her hitchy service motion, 175 I.Q., shadow swings and jumps in the backcourt between return points, a two-handed backhand-and-forehand game modeled on that of Monica Seles and an on-court glare that made no secret not only of her great will, but also her stubbornness. Quite often in the past, her ire has been directed at her falter Walter, who quit his medical practice to become his daughter's full-time coach, seeking to create a tennis champion via all sorts of odd training techniques -- such as running with tennis balls taped to her feet, amongst others, practice drills and "rewards" (such as giving a young Marion sweets for accurate shots, hence her longtime Backspin nickname, "La Trufflette"). In the process, while not molding a tennis champion from what would be the sport's most natural athlete, Dr. Bartoli did help give birth to one of the sport's great fighters.
After breaking off her oft-contentious coaching relationship with her dad (which included her ordering him to leave his seat in the stands during one of her matches at Wimbledon two years ago), Bartoli struggled to find a satisfactory replacement, going through several coaches (including former Wimbledon champ Jana Novotna) before finally utilizing the help of France's tennis federation, recently newly headed-up by another former SW19 winner, Amelie Mauresmo, who has both served as Bartoli's mentor and Fed Cup coach after brokering a deal that ended Marion's acrimonious nine-year estrangement from the nation's tennis organization. Previously having not reached a QF in '13 while also dealing with injury and illness, Bartoli, just a bit better at pretty much every aspect of her game than she was when she reached her first slam final, finally came into her own over the last two weeks, both on and off court.
The Pastry quickly held for 5-1, then held two match points at 15/40 on Lisicki's serve, and it looked as if things would be over in a flash.
But that hasn't been Lisicki's style at this Wimbledon, when she's corralled her sometimes-unruly power game in less pressure-packed moments and pulled miraculous victory from seemingly assured defeat. In matches against both last year's Wimbledon finalists in the past week, Serena (4th Rd.) and A-Rad (SF), Lisicki climbed back from 3-0 3rd set deficits to win over the world's #1 and #4-ranked players, respectively. And she began to play without the pressure of expectation here, as well. Big serves saved two match points, then she hit her fastest serves of the day after facing a third match point, saving it and going on to hold for 5-2. A break of Bartoli as she served for the title followed, as did another hold as Lisicki closed to 5-4, with her groundstrokes finally grooved as they were during her upset of Williams.
But Bartoli wasn't going to go down in history, as Novotna nearly was after her remarkable fumble against Graf in the '93 Ladies final (before finally winning her only slam five years later), as the player who lost a 6-1/5-1, 40/15 lead in the Wimbledon final. After winning a rally with one of her signature angled backhands in the first point, Bartoli took a 40/love lead. On her fourth match point, she fired an ace on the outside line of the service box, then quickly dropped her racket and sank to her knees in disbelief.
While Bartoli was often ignored over the course of the past fortnight, she didn't ignore anyone in what was rightly HER moment. She raced across the court to the Friends Box to congratulate her team, including mentor Mauresmo, friend Kristina Mladenovic (who Bartoli noted during her on-court interview was playing in tomorrow's Mixed Doubles final) and, of course, her still-close dad, without whose crazy dream of creating a champion she would likely have never experienced this moment in her life. As she and Lisicki, whose dream Bartoli had just (temporarily?) extinguished, she comfortingly grabbed hold of the woman who'd been her opponent only a few short moments before and walked arm-in-arm with her toward the fans seeking autographs on the side of the court. In that brief little moment, Bartoli's pleasant humanity shined as clearly and loudly as any of her eccentricities ever have.
As the new Wimbledon champion has learned since she last walked off Centre Court following a Ladies Championship, life need not be defined by a failure or inability to meet any particular desire. Life is life, and Lisicki, like Bartoli has discovered, will have more chances at happiness. She'll smile again. In fact, by the time Lisicki left the court, she already was.
Meanwhile, though she's a "veteran" by tennis standards, Bartoli is still just 28 in "real life" terms. As ESPN's Chris Evert said in the aftermath of the French woman's triumph, "it's never too late for a new beginning."
Amen. And allez, Marion.
* - "She's like a little artist out there. you can almost see her brain tick and how seldom she's at a loss for what she should do. (For) someone (who) has so many shots she seems to be very precise and clear." - Pam Shriver, on Aga Radwanska
* - "In tennis, anything can happen. I'm a perfect example of it." - Marion Bartoli
* - "Well, (spreads arms) that's me!" - Marion Bartoli, asked to explain her mediocre season *before* winning Wimbledon
* - "I'm not a mentor to that girl!" - Serena Williams, in a Rolling Stone interview, on Sloane Stephens, who'd talked about being close friends with Williams, who she said had essentially taken her under her wing
* - "It's never late for a new beginning." - Chris Evert, on Marion Bartoli
* - "For me, finishing with an ace to win Wimbledon, in my wildest dreams I couldn't believe that. Maybe a backhand winner, but just not an ace. I've been practicing my serve for so long, at least I saved it for the best moment." - Marion Bartoli
* - "It has always been a part of my personality to be different. I actually love that part of my game, you know: being able to have something different. At the end of the day, when the spectators were looking at ten matches, they will remember this girl that was doing something different." - Marion Bartoli
By 2014, it had been three years since Petra Kvitova's maiden Wimbledon title run had earned her rave reviews. But when the Czech returned to the scene of her greatest triumph, she knew exactly what to do.
Though she'd been tapped for SW19 greatness upon lifting the Venus Rosewater Dish at age 21, replicating her first slam success hadn't been an immediate fait accompli for Petra Kvitova. Though when she reached her *second* slam final at age 24, naturally, it came at the All-England Club.
Just as she had in her original run, the Czech flashed dominant shock-and-awe form en route to the title, losing just one set during the fortnight (vs. Venus Williams in the 3rd Rd., as the vet was two points from the win in the 2nd set of a 5-7/7-6(2)/7-5, two-and-a-half hour battle) as she improved her career mark at the AELTC (Wimbledon + Olympics) to 29-6. After taking care of countrywomen Barbora Strycova (QF) and Lucie Safarova (SF), Kvitova blasted maiden slam finalist Genie Bouchard 6-3/6-0. The most lopsided SW19 final in twenty-two years, the 55-minute match (the fifth-shortest Ladies final) was the first major championship contested between two players born in the 1990's. Kvitova became the eighth woman in the Open era with multiple Wimbledon Ladies title runs.
While Kvitova's second slam win *again* hinted at great things for her future, while she'd often have extended stretches of dominance on the regular WTA tour stage for the remainder of the decade, the "Good Petra/Bad Petra" in-match battle continued as her penchant for three-setters earned her her "P3tra" moniker. After surviving a home invasion attack in 2017 and undergoing career-saving surgery on her racket hand, Kvitova reached her third career slam final at the Australian Open in 2019. Still, she hasn't won a major title since her '14 run, and didn't have her next second week run at Wimbledon until the same '19 season.
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Ladies finalist Genie Bouchard, the girls champion SW19 just two years earlier, looked for all the world like the tour's newest star. Semifinal runs in Melbourne and Paris preceded her becoming the first Canadian to contest a slam singles final, and her aggressive style of play, blunt confidence and immediate off-court marketability seemed to predict a great future.
The tenth different finalist in the last five slams, Bouchard, despite being in just her sixth career slam MD appearance, was the betting favorite to win the final vs. former champ Kvitova. She came into the match not having lost a set, and straight sets wins over future #1's and soon-to-be slam champs Angelique Kerber (QF) and Simona Halep (SF, her first Top 5 win) had assured her of a Top 10 ranking (the first for a Canadian woman since Carling Bassett in 1985).
And then Kvitova squashed any notions of grandeur. Whether the Czech exposed the limitations of Bouchard's game, or damaged her confidence and psyche from that day forward, remains a intriguingly debatable topic of discussion.
Still, Bouchard was the eighth player to play in both the girls and Ladies singles finals, and emerged from London with a best-ever CAN ranking of #7, heading to the U.S. Open seeking to match Chris Evert's Open era record of reaching the semis at every major by the time she'd completed her first seven slam MD appearances. It didn't happen in NYC (she reached the Round of 16), and still hasn't.
Bouchard reached the QF at the AO in '15, and had rebounded from back-to-back 1st Round RG/WI exits by returning to the 4th Round in New York that summer. But after a late night win, Bouchard slipped on a wet floor in a poorly-lit lockerroom, hit her head and suffered a concussion. What followed was an extended battle with Post-concussion syndrome, an ever longer lawsuit journey against the USTA for negligence, and testimony in open court (when the tennis organization stunningly declined to settle) in which she detailed her experiences.
Bouchard ultimately "won," as the USTA was declared to be "mostly at fault," but it had all come at a price. While Bouchard's is still a famous/popular face/name off-court (she's multiple-time SI swimsuit issue model), and she's had a few big wins (she reached two finals in '16) and a handful of fine Fed Cup performances, she hasn't registered as a consistent threat on the court in years. For a time she was as pugnacious and opinionated as ever (especially in the wake of Maria Sharapova's suspension), but Bouchard's game never really developed beyond the one-plan approach that worked so well in 2014, and she seemed to lose some pop on her shots, as well. She's struggled to maintain a Top 50 ranking (since her #7 finish in '14, her final rankings have looked like this: #48-46-81-89), and at one point slipped outside the Top 100. In 2019, she was easily surpassed by teenager Bianca Andreescu as Canada's top player.
Bouchard's 1st Round loss at Wimbledon in '19 was her ninth straight in the first two rounds of majors, and the twelfth in her last fourteen (w/ one failed qualifying run) since the '15 U.S. Open accident.
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The 2014 Wimbledon turned out to pretty much be a disaster for Serena Williams. Quite the opposite was the case for Alize Cornet.
In the 3rd Round, after winning five straight games to take the 1st set from Alize Cornet after a rain delay, Williams' game went awry as the French woman's came into focus. The Pastry won the first five games of the 2nd and, on her second attempt in the 3rd, served out the match with a love game to win 1-6/6-3/6-4. It was Cornet's third win over Williams in 2014, and she'd previously been 0-13 in grand slams vs. Top 20 players. Serena had lost before the Round of 16 at Wimbledon just twice before, in 2005 and in her 1998 debut.
But that was only the start. Two days after losing to Cornet, having taken the court with sister Venus for a 2nd Round doubles match vs. Kristina Barrois & Stefanie Voegele, Williams appeared dizzy and disoriented, had difficult bouncing and catching a ball before serving, and then fired four straight uncoordinated DF's during which her shots barely reached the net.
With a stunned buzz quickly traveling around the AELTC grounds about her odd behavior, the match didn't last long. The sisters retired after just three games.
In a statement, Williams explained the incident by saying that she was dealing with an illness that had "gotten the best" of her. Offered as evidence after the fact was a social media post of a (finally) resting Serena.
Of course, Serena being Serena, she responded to the disappointment and raised eyebrows by refocusing... and then going out and winning the next *four* majors, completing her second career "Serena Slam." Naturally.
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Bouchard's appearance in the final wasn't the only notable late second week run, as Lucie Safarova reached her first career slam semifinal (she'd reach the RG final year later, then soon after have issues with illness for the rest of her career) as part of a record group of *three* Czechs in the SW19 quarterfinals. Her luck being as it is, Safarova played against and lost to her countrywoman, Petra Kvitova.
Meanwhile, weeks after reaching her maiden slam singles final at Roland Garros, Simona Halep reached her first Wimbledon semi after handing '13 finalist Sabine Lisicki a 4 & 0 defeat in the QF. The German, treated for a shoulder issue, had fired 20 DF in a winning Round of 16 effort the previous round.
Draw notes:
* - before eventually falling in the final eight, reigning runner-up Lisicki had the opportunity to play Wimbledon's version of "Queen for a Day," as she assumed the traditional Day 2 first-up-on-Centre Court slot usually reserved for the year-after debut of the reigning women's singles champ. With '13 winner Marion Bartoli (who was on hand to be honored, nonetheless) having retired the previous summer, the German was given a "promotion" in the SW19 schedule. She took advantage, defeating Julia Glushko 2 & 1.
* - unbeknownst to anyone at the time, the 2013 Wimbledon would be Li Na's career swan song.
The two-time slam champ was bounced early at a second straight slam since winning the Australian Open. In losing by a 7-6(5)/7-6(5) score in the 3rd Round, Li saw Barbora Zahlavova-Stycova's converted match point overruled in the 2nd set tie-break, only to then double-fault to end the Czech's 0-24 career run vs. Top 10 players. It was soon learned that the match would be Li's last with Carlos Rodriguez as her coach, and then three months later she announced her retirement.
* - in the 1st Round, CoCo Vandeweghe fired 15 aces vs. Garbine Muguruza. After failing to put away any of four MP at 5-4 in the 3rd, Vandeweghe needed nine MORE at 6-5 to finally get the win. After being 2-of-23 on break points in the match, she got a gift -- two, in fact -- as the Spaniard ended the match with back-to-back double-faults. Muguruza would reach the final two of the next three years, winning once.
* - in the 3rd Round, Madison Keys kept Yaroslava Shvedova from serving out the 1st set, then had four set points in the TB before the Kazakh won it 9-7. Late in the evening, with darkness overtaking the AELTC, an injured Keys broke for a 6-5 lead, then called for the trainers to treat her leg. Trying to hold and knot the match, the Bannerette's compromised movement led to her being broken and a TB becoming necessary. The match was then called for the night on the middle Saturday, setting up a classic and dramatic re-start on Monday... but it never happened, as Keys pulled out of the tournament due to the injury. Drat.
* - in a Round of 16 match, Angelique Kerber stared into the Maria Sharapova light and lived to tell the tale. Keeping her error total low in a match filled with hard-hitting rallies, Kerber's defense forced Sharapova into errors as she tried to do more in order to wrestle away points. The German held off a Sharapova comeback from 4-2 down in the 1st that forced a tie-break, then another after the Russian had saved a match point in the 3rd at 5-3 and threatened to pull another of her patented "lean-in-at-the-finish-line" victories when she got a break to get things back on serve at 5-4. Finally, on MP #7, Kerber ended Sharapova's 11-match winning streak in three-setters as the Russian's drought of comeback wins at SW19 from a set down was extended to a full decade ('04 SF vs. Davenport) at the conclusion of the 7-6(4)/4-6/6-4 match.
* - Aga Radwanska, trying to erase the memory of her '13 SW19 semifinal defeat at her favorite tournament, took a 3-2 lead over Ekaerina Makakova to begin their Round of 16 match... and then never won win another game, double-faulting on set point in the 1st, and then being forced to think about her harrowing predicament when the action was delayed due to rain with Makaraova leading 5-0 in the 2nd. There was no great comeback, as the Russian won 6-3/6-0.
* - Timea Bacsinszky qualified to reach her first Wimbledon MD since 2010, where she posted her first Wimbledon win since 2009 after an '11 foot injury and long break from the game resulted in what was essentially her "semi-retirement" until 2013. From 2015-17, after never having reached the 4th Round at a major, the Swiss player would reach a pair of RG semis and two additional slam QF (RG/WI).
* - Vicky Duval was given an early diagnosis of Hodgkin's lymphoma after winning in the opening round of Wimbledon qualifying, but decided to continue to play the event. She won two more matches to reach the main draw, where she picked up another match victory (def. #29 Sorana Cirstea) before losing in the 2nd Round to Belinda Bencic. Making her Top 100 debut after Wimbledon, Duval missed the next thirteen months before returning with her cancer in remission.
* - a year after upsetting Maria Sharapova, Michelle Larcher de Brito again took down another slam-winning Russian, eliminating #28 Svetlana Kuznetsova in the 1st Round. She lost in the 3rd Round to Aga Radwanska.
* - 17-year old Belinda Bencic, the '13 girls champ, made her Wimbledon debut and reached the 3rd Round. Later in the summer, she'd reach the QF in her U.S. Open debut and go to win the WTA's Newcomer of the Year award.
* - Madison Brengle failed to qualify (losing in the final round) at a 24th consecutive major, making her 0-for-27 in slam qualifying attempts in her career. She'd appeared in four slam MD in 2007-08 (three via a WC), but had gone 0-4 in 1st Round matches. Brengle would get a WC into the U.S. Open MD later that summer and posted her first career MD win at a major. The following January, she'd reach the Round of 16 at the Australian Open.
Though she's played in twenty consecutive slam MD through the '19 Wimbledon (w/ 13 wins), Brengle failed to qualify in her one additional Q-round attempt since '14 at the '18 U.S. Open. Still, she reached the draw that year as a lucky loser.
* - Anabel Medina Garrigues did not play in the singles at Wimbledon (after having lost in RG qualifying to end her singles career), bringing an end to her 42-slam run of Q/MD appearances in majors (she continued to play doubles until 2018). It also assured the Spaniard of staying on the "select" list of WTA players (along with retired Anna Smashnova) with 10 or more tour singles titles but zero slam quarterfinal berths.
Entering the '19 Wimbledon, in a slightly altered version of such a list, Elina Svitolina is the sole player with *13+* titles and no slam *semifinal* appearances. Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova needs one additional tour-level singles title to join her.
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Sara Errani & Roberta Vinci won their first Wimbledon title, becoming the fifth women's duo to complete a Career Doubles Slam in the Open era with their straight sets victory in the final over Timea Babos & Kristina Mladenovic. The Italians had saved six match points in their 3rd Round match against qualifiers Lyudmyla & Nadiia Kichenok, but lost just one other set (QF vs. Barty/Dellacqua) in the event. They dropped a total of nine games in the SF/F.
It would be the last of five majors won by the duo, who collected their haul in just a ten-slam stretch from the '12 RG to '14 Wimbledon. Errani/Vinci reached eight finals over an eleven slam span that ended with the '14 title, after having won three of four major titles beginning with their maiden crown in Paris in '12.
In MX, Samantha Stosur teamed with Nenad Zimonjic to take the title, claiming her fifth career MX championship, her first since winning Wimbledon with Bob Bryan in 2008. The win in the final over Chan Hao-ching & Max Mirnyi eventually allowed Stosur to become the only woman (thus far) to win slam singles (2011 U.S.), doubles (2019 AO) and mixed titles during the decade. [NOTE: with Serena Williams currently playing in the '19 Wimbledon MX with Andy Murray, she *could* join Stosur on that list with a title.]
In the girls singles, 17-year old Alona Ostapenko (at that point, she was still referred to only as "Jelena") became the first Latvian to win a junior slam crown. Unseeded, Ostapenko closed out her run by defeating four straight seeds: #9 Anhelina Kalinina, #3 Tornado Black, #12 Marketa Vondrousova and #8-seeded Slovak Kristina Schmiedlova (younger sister of '12 RG girls finalist Anna Karolina) in a 2-6/6-3/6-0 final. She fired off 40 winners in the championship match.
Three years later in 2017, Ostapenko would sucker-punch the tennis world by winning the Roland Garros women's singles title two days after her 20th birthday, and reached the Wimbledon Ladies semifinals in '18.
Indonesia's Tami Grende and China's Ye Qiuyu became the first all-Asian duo to win the Wimbledon junior doubles and just the second pair to do so at any slam (joining Chan Yung-Jan, aka Latisha, & Sun Sheng-nan (TPE/CHN) at the Australian Open in 2004), defeating top-seeded Marie Bouzkova & Dalma Galfi in the final.
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After winning in Melbourne and Paris, Yui Kamiji & Jordanne Whiley claimed the Wimbledon Wheelchair Doubles title for a third straight slam victory, defeating two-time defending champs Jiske Griffioen & Aniek Van Koot in the final. The Dutch duo won a Doubles Grand Slam in '13, and Kamiji & Whiley would do the same in '14, completing the major sweep in New York later in the summer. They'd extend their winning streak to five at the '15 Australian Open.
By the end of 2014, the 20-year old #1 ranked Kamiji was the reigning champion at six of the seven WC slam disciplines (all but AO singles, where she was runner-up), the best post-Vergeer stretch of dominace in the sport's slam history until 2019.
WE'VE ONLY GONE AND WON WIMBLEDON!!! #wimbledonchampions pic.twitter.com/9cwalTr3r6
— jordanne whiley (@jordannejoyce92) July 6, 2014===============================================
After a three-year will-she-or-won't-she question about a comeback, Martina Hingis finally returned to the WTA tour for the summer hard court season of 2013. At the U.S. Open, she played in her first major (in doubles and mixed) since 2007. The '14 Wimbledon was her second, with her first MD appearances in doubles and mixed since 2000 and 1997, respecitively.
Having moved on from a short-lived doubles partnership with Daniela Hantuchova, whose efforts Hingis credited for "bring her out of retirement," Hingis didn't play from the end of the U.S. Open until March '14. When she returned to the tour full-time that spring, Hingis didn't have a regular doubles partner, playing at times with Sabine Lisicki (who she'd help coach during the AO), Flavia Pennetta, Belinda Bencic and Vera Zvonareva in '14. She and Zvonareva were give a WC into the doubles draw at SW19, where they lost to #4-seeded Cara Black & Sania Mirza in the 1st Round. In mixed, she and Bruno Soares (#13 seeds) lost in the QF to defending champs Mladenovic/Nestor.
Hingis started her partnership with Mirza the following March, and it began with the duo pulling off the "Sunshine Doubles" by winning Indian Wells and Miami. In 2015-16, they'd go on to win three majors and a WTA Finals crown while going 14-3 in tour finals in a partnership that lasted just fourteen months.
Meanwhile, in the Wimbledon Legends competition that Hingis had won the previous three seasons, Jana Novotna & Barbara Schett took the title. It was Novotna's fifth win (w/ Ros Nideffer, Helena Sukova, Kathy Rinaldi and Martina Navratilova between 2006-10) in the invitational competition since she won the Ladies title in 1998.
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SEEN AT THE AELTC:
Vika Azarenka and the return of The Shorts...
Will & Kate...
Ricky Gervais and David Beckham, dressing down and up...
2013 champion Marion Bartoli returns to Centre Court on Day 2...
Ilie Nastase, masquerading as a military strongman...
Princess Eugenie of York, for whom Eugenie/Genie Bouchard was named...
Actor (and Bouchard celebrity fan) Jim Parsons...
Andy Murray and coach Amelie Mauresmo ('06 Wimbledon champ)...
The predominant storyline heading into the Ladies singles final today seemed to revolve around 20-year old Eugenie Bouchard, a fresh and new face on the WTA tour. With an edgy confidence that has been revealed through an extended three-slam, six-month breakout, hers has gone from a name known only to in-the-know tennis fans to that of the player being dubbed "the next One," the sort of player who can galvanize both off-court fanfare as well as on-court success radiantly from a supremely confident personality and fist-clenching competitiveness that calls to mind the intense greats of other sports, along with a matter-of-fact acknowledgement of her own belief in the inevitability of her success that sounds an awful lot like some of the comments made by one Roger Federer when he was in the midst of placing his name atop a series of "best ever" lists.
For the first time since a teenage Russian burst onto the scene in London a decade ago, the face of the next generation of "full package success" seemed to be ready to emphatically claim her place in the spotlight. Named for English royalty (Princess Eugenie, who was present in the Royal Box for the match), armed with "good luck charm" actor Jim Parsons in the Friends Box, as well as her two sisters, who'd flown in to join their ever-present little brother in the crowd, every plot point seemed ready to project the Canadian into the WTA stratosphere. Right now. Flattered by comparisons to other slam-winning players such as Sharapova and "cold-hearted killer" Chris Evert, Bouchard had still made a point to say rather clearly, "I want to make my own history." She already has and will continue to do just that.
But today was Kvitova's day to shine -- glow white-hot, really -- on Centre Court. Again. In its own right, the inevitability of becoming a grand slam champion is a tough opponent... but not as tough as the Czech was today.
After witnessing Kvitova's thunderous run to her maiden slam title at Wimbledon in 2011, it was crystal clear to anyone with working vision -- and good hearing, too, for that matter -- that she COULD dominate on the grass like few people in the collective memory of tennis watchers. Rarely has a young player been the object of such fawning attention from all-time greats as Kvitova was following her all-encompassing destruction of Sharapova on Centre Court in the final three years ago. It was easy to forget that she was also a shy, 21-year old in no way prepared for the onslaught of attention and heightened expectations that her success was about to dump into her lap the second she stepped off the grass.
Over the course of the past three years, while the Czech has often been a bundle of errors waiting to explode in the middle of a match, in between bouts with breathing issues associated with her asthma, that is, no one truly forgot that Kvitova, under the right circumstances, had the ability, especially on the grass, to prevent an opponent from even seeing an opportunity to step into a match, blowing them off the court in a barrage of clean groundstroke winners and explosive, wide-angling lefty serves. But after not seeing much of THAT Petra over the last three years, recently, the possibility of giving up hope that we ever would again was starting to creep into the conversation.
Thankfully, Kvitova never gave up on herself. Some players in similar situations, whether or not they had fewer gifts at their disposal as the talented Czech, might have done just that and never fully recovered. We've seen it happen many times before. While her results were still often spotty, Kvitova still managed to improve her fitness over the past year, and even hired a "mental coach" to help her deal with all the things that hampered her in the past.
While Bouchard's name was on everyone's lips before the match, #6-seeded Kvitova was having nothing of it once the match began. Not at Wimbledon. Not on Centre Court, both her tennis "home," as well as that of her childhood idol, Martina Navratilova. And with the "host" determining the "guest's" menu for the day, what Bouchard received was a steady diet of hard, deep power shots that often handcuffed the Canadian from her position inside the baseline. Kvitova's groundstrokes attacked the very cherished ground that Bouchard had established as her own during this past fortnight, and her angled shots often left the first Canadian to ever reach a slam singles final flailing to just get a racket on the ball, let alone think about establishing any sort of footing from which to impose her own game on the Czech as she had in big moments against other players through her first six matches at the AELTC.
Kvitova was simply not going to allow her into the match, and Bouchard could do nothing about that fact.
In her last ditch attempt to hold serve, Bouchard tried to seize control of a rally by moving into the net on game point, only to see Kvitova blast a forehand cross-court passing shot to wipe it away. Soon it was 4-0 with another break, with Kvitova in total command of things, dictating nearly every point with clean shots to which there was no acceptable response. Bouchard, often out of position, would continually lunge for shots that, once she got a racket on them, would just result in the the ball sailing sky high to set up Kvitova for an even easier winner. Kvitova held at love for 5-0, and suddenly Bouchard was attempting to avoid the most lopsided Wimbledon final loss in twenty-two years (Graf def. Seles 6-2/6-1 in 1992). As was the case with everything all day, Bouchard still couldn't hold Kvitova back. At 30/30, Bouchard committed an error that gave the Czech a match point. Kvitova's cross-court backhand winner ended the 6-3/6-0 match after just fifty-five minutes.
All in all, it was unstoppable march to an inevitable conclusion for Kvitova, one made without a single misstep.
Finally, once the match was complete, somebody put a stop to Kvitova -- whoever looked at the weather radar and decided to close the Centre Court roof for the trophy presentation. The moved forced the two finalists, in an unprecedented move, to leave the court before the beginning of the post-match ceremonies. Once Kvitova and Bouchard had returned after the beautiful overhead mechanical contraption had sealed off the ages-old building from the elements, Bouchard waited patiently (and as politely as she possibly could) while Kvitova took a more adult, this-time-she-knows-what-she's-getting-herself-into victory lap with the Venus Rosewater dish. By the time she'd climbed the indoor steps and fulfilled the new-ish tradition of posing with the trophy on a balcony overlooking the grounds and a slew of gathered fans, the rains had arrived.
But nothing was going to rain on Kvitova's parade of smiles on her second day in the SW19 sun... even if that sun was hiding somewhere behind the clouds.
If Wimbledon is where the majority of Kvitova's tennis legend will be told, then she should own it. Fully and completely. In her post-match interview, Kvitova joked that she's still has a long way to go to match record nine-time champ Navratilova's Wimbledon exploits.
It is a far way down the road, for sure, but it's not a road that is definitively closed to the Czech. Not if she can reach and play Wimbledon finals with the same tenacity, power and precision that she did both in 2011 and today. Three years ago, she cemented her beautiful friendship with Wimbledon as she looked virtually unbeatable on the grass if she played at her top level. She looked just as lethal today.
Grand history has been carved from circumstances with far less promise than that.
* - "I'm not looking for anyone to believe in me or anything like that. You have to believe in yourself these days. I have nothing to prove, nothing to hide, nothing to lose." - Venus Williams
* - "She speaks the way she plays right now -- with great clarity. She knows what she's about. She's very comfortable, even though she doesn't have much experience in life terms. She's the real deal, isn't she?" - Pam Shriver, on Genie Bouchard
* - "You know, he's kind of been in trouble recently. ... I'm not associated with that at the moment. But, you know, if he cleans up his image." - Genie Bouchard on whether she'd date singer Justin Bieber, the Canadian's admitted celebrity crush
* - "I'm sad my streak is broken. But obviously there's nothing I can do. It feels like the end of the world now, but fortunately it's not." - Sloane Stephens, whose 1st Round loss ended her six-slam Round of 16-better run
* - "I am heartbroken I'm not able to continue in the tournament. I thought I could rally this morning, because I really wanted to compete, but this bug just got the best of me." - Serena Williams, in a statement, explaining her bizarre retirement from her doubles match after being unable to catch, bounce or serve balls through the warm-up and first three games
* - "It's not like a surprise to me. I expect good results like this." - Genie Bouchard, on reaching the Ladies final
* - "You cannot lose a match like this. I'm really an idiot." - Flavia Pennetta, following her 2nd Round loss
* - "I love everything here because I think it’s one of the best grand slams. The atmosphere here is really nice, the people are really nice, also the grass courts. That everyone is playing in white clothes. I think it looks really nice." - junior Wimbledon champ Alona Ostapenko
* - "I was in the engraver’s room, so I was watching them work, wishing one day, dreaming that he’ll write my name somewhere." - Genie Bouchard, on waiting off-court for the Centre Court roof to close for the post-match trophy ceremony
* - "It’s my second title, so I hope that now it's going to be a little easier for me." - Petra Kvitova
One year earlier, Serena Williams had left Wimbledon following a stunning singles loss and bizarre doubles exit. Four slams later in 2015, she returned to London to complete "Serena Slam II."
A year earlier, Williams had seemed to be in a rut (or worse), falling to Alize Cornet in the 2nd Round at the AELTC, then retiring from a doubles match after barely being able to get her coordination straight enough to toss a ball up and even have her serve *reach* the net. But, Serena being Serena, she responded by taking out her frustration and disappointment on her opponents, and the record books. She hadn't lost a match in a slam since.
But this title run hadn't been easy. Williams was two points from defeat in the 3rd Round against Heather Watson, but rallied to down the home court favorite. She followed up with a Round of 16 win over sister Venus (their first SW19 meeting since since the '09 final, and their earliest ever in the event).
WATCH Lovely reception for the Williams sisters as they embrace at the net #ManicMonday http://t.co/EoayLv4thG
— Wimbledon (@Wimbledon) July 6, 2015Next came wins over former #1's Victoria Azarenka and Maria Sharapova, with her 28th straight slam victory (over Garbine Muguruza in a 6-4/6-4 final) coming against a player who'd already beaten her in a slam match and who'd win *her* first major in less than a year and reach #1 in a little more than two. The title allowed Williams to top Martina Navratilova and become the oldest women's slam champ in the Open era at 33 years, 263 days as she secured her eighth major title since turning thirty. Only two other woman (Navratilova and Margaret Court) in the Open era have won as many as three.
21-year old Spaniard Muguruza's big game had flashed great promise in the past (def. Serena in Paris in '14, for example), but her inconsistency often prevented any sustained runs of great success. That part of Garbi's game was kept (mostly, but not entirely) at bay over the two weeks of play at the All-England Club as things came together like never before. Muguruza had spent most of '15 going in and out of the Top 20, and she was just 1-2 on the grass when she arrived in London. But something clicked there, and three Top 15 wins and three three-set victories later and she was a maiden slam finalist, the first Spanish woman to play for the Wimbledon title since 1996. With back-to-back QF-or-better slam results, and three straight Round of 16's in majors, Muguruza made her Top 10 debut.
It was clear that Muguruza had the goods to become the third woman from Spain to win a grand slam title. And she would the next year at Roland Garros (def. Serena in the final), then again at Wimbledon in 2017 (def. Venus in the final) .
Muguruza would continue to be an enigma the rest of the decade, though, often going from one extreme to another (and sometimes back again) when it came to her level of play.
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Before winning the title on Saturday, Serena Williams had earlier "celebrated" the eleventh anniversary of her loss in the 2004 Wimbledon final to Maria Sharapova with a thorough straight sets destruction of the Russian in the semifinals, running her career record in their head-to-head to 18-2, with seventeen straight victories. While Williams went on to win the title, Sharapova nonetheless moved up to #2 in the WTA rankings. Rarely, if ever, had then been a wider (perception-wise, at the very least) gap between the #1 and "#2" ranked players in the world.
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What a difference a year can make at the All-England Club. Three of 2014's final four in singles failed to reach the second week of the fortnight in '15.
Defending champion Petra Kvitova got off to a great start, dominating Kiki Bertens 1 & love in the 1st Round (winning 28 of 29 points on serve, including all 22 of her First Serves -- her only lost point came via a DF). But she'd lose in the 3rd Round to Jelena Jankovic, who reached the Round of 16 for the first time since 2010. The Czech led JJ 6-3/4-2, winning thirteen straight points in one stretch and still having not been broken in the tournament. But once Jankovic got a break to get back on serve at 4-4, the slide began, then a second break to win the 2nd set sent Kvitova "down the other side." A nearly ten-minute off-court break between sets didn't turn the match in her favor, as errors and a curious case of brain lock (stopping play to challenge a line call when she up was up 30/15 on JJ's serve at 4-4, and in complete control of the point -- the ball was in, and instead of having two BP for a shot to serve FOR the match Kvitova was soon serving to stay IN it) proved to be Petra's final undoing against the resurgent Serb.
2014 finalist Genie Bouchard lost in the 1st Round to qualifier Duan Yingying (#117), exiting her second straight major after just one match and falling to 2-12 in her last fourteen outings.
A year after reaching her first Wimbledon semifinal (after having previously been just 2-3 at SW19), Simona Halep, who'd fired coach Victor Ionita before the tournament, was upset in the 1st Round by Jana Cepelova. After winning the 1st set, the Romanian dropped her final two serve games in the 2nd as the #106-ranked Cepelova knotted the match. Serving for the match at 5-3, Cepelova fell behind love/40, but swept the final five points to record her second career Top 5 win (the other: Serena in Charleston a season earlier).
Jana Cepelova stuns World No.3 Halep 57 64 63 in #Wimbledon 1R! Second career Top 5 win--> http://t.co/CcoqWFVm66 pic.twitter.com/BhVyD12RYw
— WTA (@WTA) June 30, 2015
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Laura Robson, again a Wimbledon wild card, played in her first slam since undergoing wrist surgery in early 2014. The Brit was the lowest ranked player in the draw, and lost 4 & 4 to Evgeniya Rodina.
While Robson's career continued to flounder, fellow Brit Heather Watson had what may be the most exciting slam singles run of her career.
In the 1st Round, Watson saved three MP and knocked off #32 Caroline Garcia in an 8-6 3rd set. Two rounds later she faced #1 Serena Williams, and pretty much had her dead to rights for an upset before the eventual champion surged back to get the win.
A British tennis heroine even in ultimate defeat, Watson made Serena look doomed with her expert defense and smart, big-point play. She held a double-break lead at 3-0 in the 3rd. Williams needed six BP chances to win the 18-point game #4 to begin her climb back. Still, after Williams got back on serve, Watson broke her at love (in an error-strewn game by Serena) and served for the match at 5-4, coming within two points of what would have been a history-altering upset. Serena finally got the break on her fourth BP try there and bulled her way to the win, preventing Watson from becoming the first Brit to post a #1 win since 1979. The rest, as they say, was history.
The Serena Slam is still alive. The world No.1 survives an epic against Heather Watson 6-2, 4-6, 7-5 #Wimbledon pic.twitter.com/zq9XNeFQCf
— Wimbledon (@Wimbledon) July 3, 2015Serena: "[Heather] was playing so good, there was nothing I could do. She should've won the match. She gave her all" pic.twitter.com/D246lymBMM
— Wimbledon (@Wimbledon) July 3, 2015===============================================
Draw notes:
* - 2015 was the first season with the new schedule that saw Wimbledon begin a week later on the calendar, giving the players a *third* week of grass court preparation between Roland Garros and Wimbledon.
* - On Day 7, three of the top four junior seeds lost in a matter of hours, including both the Roehampton winner (#3 Dalma Galfi, who lost to Brit Maia Lumsden) and runner-up (#1 Marketa Vondrousova, to Scotland's Anna Brogan), as well as a Roland Garros girls finalist (#4 Anna Kalinskaya, to Viktoria Kuzmova).
Kuzmova has since gone on to success on the WTA tour, while Lumsden has occasional success (mostly) on the ITF level. Brogan is currently playing junior college tennis in Tyler, Texas.
* - 2014 Wimbledon girls champ Alona Ostapenko received a MD wild card and made her slam debut, defeating #9-seed Carla Suarez-Navarro 6-2/6-0 in the 1st Round.
Meanwhile, while her twin sister Karolina (#11 seed) once again failed to achieve a breakthrough slam performance at Wimbledon (losing in the 2nd Round), the less heralded Kristyna Pliskova upset Tereza Smitkova (who'd reached the '14 Round of 16) and #26-seed Svetlana Kuznetsova to reach the 3rd Round. Kristyna won the Wimbledon girls title in 2010.
* - Aga Radwanska defeated Jelena Jankovic in a 7-5/6-4 4th Round match that had a little Radwanska magic, JJ nearly wiping out a ball kid, Aga almost cutting herself in half while running into the net cord, a backhand drop shot from behind the baseline and the Pole's eagle-eyed challenge that overturned a call and gave her a break for 5-4 in the 2nd. This one had it all... well, except for a 3rd set. Acting in the role of a cat toying with a mouse in the 2nd, Radwanska dispatched JJ in straights to deny us untold gifts that may have awaited with a another 30-60 minutes of play. But, still, we were left to thrill in the short-term pleasure of a match that didn't overstay its welcome and, instead, left us begging for a little more.
When someone tells you there's a slice of cheesecake on the other side of the net pic.twitter.com/KZSLtBcLJ8
— WTA Reactions (@WTAreactions) July 6, 2015* - Timea Bacsinszky's comeback reached new heights in '15, as she reached the SF in Paris, then the QF at Wimbledon. She'd never advanced beyond the Round of 16 in twenty slam MD appearances before the back-to-back results. Along the way, she handed Sabine Lisicki a 3 & 2 loss in the 3rd Round, the German's worst Wimbledon finish since 2009.
I'm "quite" happy to see you again tomorrow ! ?? ???????? #FlyingRacket #ComeBackKid #LoveGrass #Limitless #TeamWork pic.twitter.com/uwCg2fhmmE
— Timea Bacsinszky (@TimeaOfficial) July 6, 2015
* - the '15 Wimbledon was where Zheng Jie played her final matches, a pair of 1st Round losses in women's and mixed doubles. The Chinese vet had already had her final singles match at the Australian Open, a 1st Round loss, and had been playing doubles exclusively for the previous half season. Zheng had been the *first* Chinese player to reach the semifinals at a major at Wimbledon in 2008. Then, while countrywoman Li Na reached *her* first semis in the Australian Open in '10 she was joined there by Zheng, who became the first from the nation with *two* in what is still the best combined performance at a slam by a pair of Chinese players.
Zheng gets somewhat lost in the shuffle of Chinese tennis with Li and Peng Shuai, but she won two slam WD titles (including Wimbledon in '06) and reached another final, with a career doubles high of #3, as well as winning four tour singles titles, and ranking as high as #15. She won a Bronze medal in doubles (w/ Yan Zi) at the '08 Beijing Olympics, as they were the only tennis players to medal for the host nation.
* - Lisa Raymond also played her last Wimbledon, falling in a QF doubles match alongside Cara Black to Ekaterina Makarova & Elena Vesnina in an 8-6 3rd set. Raymond won the 2001 Wimbledon doubles, and 1999 and '12 mixed titles. She posted one of her two career singles slam QF results at SW19 in 2000.
* - after pulling off big upsets -- Maria Sharapova in '13, Svetlana Kuznetsova in '14 -- at the last two Wimbledons en route to back-to-back 3rd Round finishes, Michelle Larcher de Brito had a brief but wild ride in '15. Playing in qualifying, she saved three MP to down Ysaline Bonaventure in her opening match, but then failed to convert 2 MP in the 2nd set of her second match against Jessica Pegula. Forced to a 3rd, Larcher de Brito retired down 5-4 with a wrist injury.
She's never reached a slam MD since, falling in qualifying rounds at three slams over the next two years (including back-to-back Wimbledon Q2 exits). Larcher de Brito hasn't played a pro match since March 2018.
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A year after Sara Errani & Robert Vinci won the Wimbledon doubles title to complete their Career Slam, their partnership was no more. Errani decided not to defend the title in '15, while Vinci teamed with another Italian, Karin Knapp, and lost in the 3rd Round.
The Williams sisters had been installed as the #12 seeds, set to play at SW19 one year after Serena's odd retirement from their 2nd Round match in '14 due to what she termed an illness. But they withdrew after the draw had been made, but before the start of play, and were replaced by a lucky loser duo. They'd only play together once more (2016) at Wimbledon the rest of the decade.
"She's skipping around on Centre Court like a teenager all over again!"
Martina Hingis & Sania Mirza, #wimbledon pic.twitter.com/l5sMWf1R8K
— BBC Tennis (@bbctennis) July 11, 2015.@MHingis/@MirzaSania win #Wimbledon dubs title with epic 3-set win over Makarova/Vesnina--> http://t.co/BWrdVQWBFZ pic.twitter.com/m82xQ1iHsm
— WTA (@WTA) July 11, 2015Meanwhile, it was Martina Hingis & Sania Mirza who ruled the doubles courts at Wimbledon (and on tour as a whole that season after first teaming up in the spring, winning nine titles on three different surfaces, two majors, the "Sunshine Double" and the WTAF). The world's #1-ranked team, Hingis/Mirza staged a 3rd set comeback from 5-2 down in the final vs. Makarova/Vesnina, giving Hall of Famer Hingis her first title at SW19 (aside from her Invitation wins in retirement) since 1998, while getting Mirza (the first Indian to win a slam WD crown) her first career slam women's doubles title. She'd been the only one of the (then) thirty-three women who'd been ranked #1 in doubles who hadn't yet won a WD major.
Hingis wasn't finished, though. A day later, she returned to Centre Court and won the Mixed doubles with Leander Paes (they'd won that year's AO, too) to become the first woman to sweep the Wimbledon doubles titles since Cara Black in 2004. Hingis & Paes would win the U.S. Open later that summer, and complete a Career Mixed Slam in Paris in '16. Hingis won two more MX titles with Jamie Murray in '17.
Hingis and Mirza won a total of three majors (going 14-3 in all finals) in a brief but brilliant run that lasted less than a year and a half before they decided to so their separate ways (save for reuniting for the '16 WTAF). Before retiring for good at the end of the 2017 season at age 37, Hingis' final career comeback stretch saw her win 10 slam titles (4 WD/6 MX), 27 WD crowns and an Olympic Silver medal (the first of her career).
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While Hingis & Mirza were the top-ranked doubles team on the WTA tour, and Bethanie Mattek-Sands & Lucie Safarova had won two '15 slams, the weelchair team of Yui Kamiji & Jordanne Whiley successfully defended their Wimbledon title to claim their sixth crown in the last seven majors.
The Japanese-British duo defeated the Dutch combo of Jiske Griffioen & Aniek Van Koot at SW19 in the seventh consecutive slam final match-up between the two teams. Griffioen/Van Koot had ended Kamiji/Whiley's five-straight title run a month earlier in Paris.
Here's how @jordannejoyce92 & Yui Kamiji successfully defended their #WimbledonFinal title http://t.co/gYX5RGlj00 pic.twitter.com/zmGfQAnGl7
— BBC Sport (@BBCSport) July 12, 2015In 2016, Wimbledon would add a wheelchair singles competition for the first time.
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Unseeded 15-year old Russian Sofya Zhuk won the Wimbledon junior title, defeating fellow Hordette Anna Blinkova (#12 seed) in the final to become just the second girl from her country to win the SW19 crown (2002 Vera Dushevina). Zhuk didn't lose a set the entire tournament.
Meanwhile, Hungary's Dalma Galfi didn't win THE biggest junior titles of the grass season, but she claimed arguably the SECOND biggest ones. The 16-year old won the Roehampton singles title and, after falling in the 1st Round at SW19, claimed the Wimbledon doubles title with Fanni Stollar, combining to become the first all-Hungarian duo to win a girls doubles major. Galfi/Stollar had knocked off #1-seeded Miriam Kolodziejova & Marketa Vondrousova, who'd won the AO and RG titles in '15, in the semis before defeating Vera Lapko & Tereza Mihalikova in the final.
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With the change in start time of the tournament, the anniversary of the "Black Wednesday" draw carnage that had created such chaos on Day 3 (June 26) in 2015, was thereafter a split affair. Still, there must have been *some* black magic left in the date(s)...
In the week before the start of play at Wimbledon, on June 26 in Eastbourne, Aga Radwanska had a close encounter with a seagull, which swooped down at the court as the Pole was serving. One day later, Radwanska lost in the singles final.
On Day 3 at SW19, the hottest temperatures in the history of the tournament were recorded (35.7 C / 96 F), while a blaring fire alarm led to the evacuaton of Centre Court.
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With Martina Hignis now winning main draw slam titles, the Invitation Doubles crown was claimed by Magdalena Maleeva & Rennae Stubbs, who defeated Martina Navratilova & Selima Sfar in the final.
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SEEN AT THE AELTC:
Royals...
Beckham & son...
Drake courtside...
Drake off-court...
Camila Giorgi...
Ilie Nastase as, umm, yeah, I don't really know...
Ilie Nastase has come dressed for the occasion.. #Wimbledon #ManicMonday pic.twitter.com/og5LuTk1Zr
— Wimbledon (@Wimbledon) July 6, 2015
And this...
Hands on 21. Eyes on 22.
It takes a remarkable performance to deny Serena Williams when she knows the shiny hardware that goes with winning a grand slam title is but a short walk away, ready to be engraved with her name once again. Going into today's Wimbledon final, only three woman had ever managed to do it in twenty-four major finals over a span of sixteen years (and one of them grew up with her).
In the 129th edition of this event at the All-England Club, hard-hitting 21-year old Spaniard Garbine Muguruza took her turn at trying to thwart the American's unrelenting attack on tennis history. While Muguruza started well, won over a whole new batch of fans, and did nothing to make herself or anyone else question her bright future, the drive of Williams -- adding another footnote to her "Greatest of All Time" argument -- simply proved to be too much to overcome. As usual.
It's just the Serena way.
Unfortunately for Muguruza, Williams had been poked, prodded and rounded into shape by a tough draw over the second week of the fortnight that only served to sharper her game, nerves, emotions and focus. She'd been primed by a heart-stopping 3rd Round survival against Heather Watson, this slam's seemingly prerequisite near-loss en route to a title (Serena was down two breaks in the 3rd set and the Brit served for the match, coming within two points of the win), an emotionally difficult win over her sister Venus a round later, a hard-hitting QF victory over a fearless Vika Azarenka a day after that, and then a dominating destruction of Maria Sharapova (still being made to never forget the impertinence of her win over Serena in the SW19 final in '04) in the semifinals. Thus, Williams came into her 25th career slam singles final a seeming "lock" to lift slam title #21, with Muguruza having just the "puncher's chance" that her power and intended aggression provided. It was quite a mountain for the Venezuelan-born Spaniard to be forced to climb in her very first major final.
But Serena was NOT going to lose this thing.
In the next game, things began with a Muguruza DF, and then just got worse for the Spaniard. Rather than being back in the match, she would soon be out of it. She couldn't get to a Williams return that bounced off the net cord and landed in the short court, then committed an error to fall down triple MP at love/40. A Muguruza shot that landed wide ended things for a 6-4/6-4 Williams win.
Ummm, or did it? Right when the victory celebration usually takes place, everything seemed to stop. Hughes didn't immediately say "game. set. match," and Williams seemed momentarily confused, wondering if Muguruza had maybe challenged the call. She hadn't. And when the final score was finally announced, Serena seemed lost and bewildered. Should she celebrate? Was it really over? Gosh, could it actually be?
It's over @SerenaWilliams, you won! Congrats to our World No.1--> http://t.co/Bypp2y5ziR #Wimbledon #tennis pic.twitter.com/FTs0Q5V8NZ
— WTA (@WTA) July 11, 2015It was, and she was soon shaking Muguruza's hand at the net, her sixth Wimbledon crown (one more than Venus, one less than Graf) in hand, as well as a 21st career major (one behind Graf) and the third leg of a possible 2015 Grand Slam (so Steffi's going to need to leave open a spot on her calendar for the final weekend of the U.S. Open -- she might want to attend the final). This is also Serena's second "Serena Slam," as she's won four straight majors, just two off the Open era consecutive record held by Margaret Court (1969-71) and Navratilova (1983-84)... so there's another record we might be talking about come next spring. And Court's all-time slam mark of twenty-four titles is now surely within reach, as well. Oh, so there's another historical chase to look forward to in '16.
But that's all to come later. Belated as it may have been, Williams DID finally take a moment to fitfully celebrate about a minute after the match had actually come to an end.
While her opponent today may have only been on earth for twenty-one years (and was just 5 when Serena won her first slam title) Williams now seems to be "forever 21," and not just because of the current number next to her name on all the slam title lists, either. Serena has rarely been as loose and free as she was after this final. You'd hardly have guessed that she'd just become the *oldest* women's singles slam champ in the Open era.
Actually, proving that she's still got a great deal of history-making feats in her young 33-year old body, Williams appeared even more junior than 21 as she walked off the court balancing the Venus Rosewater Dish on her head like a debutante-in-training.
WATCH Nice hat @serenawilliams #Wimbledon http://t.co/KVEqimFPrk
— Wimbledon (@Wimbledon) July 11, 2015Naturally, her balance didn't waver a bit. Hey, it's just the Serena way.
* - "We just saw today why Serena is #1. I haven't seen her play like this, honestly." - Victoria Azarenka, after losing to Serena Williams in the QF
* - "I can't believe I am standing here with another 'Serena Slam.'" - Serena Williams
* - "I couldn't stop crying. So many people are clapping. I make all these people feel this in a tennis court?" - Garbine Muguruza
* - "Don't be sad, you'll be holding this trophy very soon, believe me." - Serena Williams, to Garbine Muguruza
* - "I am having so much fun out on the court. Every day is a pleasure to be playing and winning Wimbledon." - Serena Williams
* - "Serena Williams will get to 25 Grand Slams and some annoying person somewhere will come up with another achievement that she hasn't done and she will figure out another way to motivate herself to keep going. It comes down to health at the end of the day. If you are still playing well, arguably better, it is pretty hard to stop. If she is able to handle nerves etc, she will be able to go as long as she wants to." - John McEnroe, on Serena Williams
In 2016, seventeen years after Steffi Graf retired with an Open era record 22 career slam titles, she finally had company in the form of one Serena Williams.
Williams had been one title-less Wimbledon away from being shut-out of being the reigning champion at any of the slams for the first time in four years. Over the span of the fortnight, she notched career slam match win #300, reached 300 weeks in the #1 ranking during her career, fired her 800th ace at the All-England Club, held serve in 30 straight games without facing a break point and finally tied Steffi Graf's record of 22 slam wins in the Open era. At 34, Williams also broke her own record (set a year ago) as the oldest SW19 singles champ.
The final was a high-quality, 7-5/6-4 affair in which both sets were determined by just a few points in the final games, as Williams lifted her level of play at the moment of truth, getting the contest's only breaks of serve in game #12 in the 1st and #9 in the 2nd. Williams and Kerber's second slam final meeting of '16 marked the first time two players had faced off for major titles in the same season since 2006 (Mauresmo/Henin).
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Kerber had spent the fortnight continuing her role in establishing a "new paradigm" for WTA success, one in which a player can peak in her late twenties, be intelligent enough to both know what she needs to do with her career in order to take the next logical step AND be willing to follow through on the plan. She'd come to Melbourne in January off a '15 season in which she'd shined like never before on the regular tour, but had found little success at the slams despite having reached two major semifinals in her career. By adding seamless aggression to her defensive game, and remaining determined and fearless enough to not abandon the gameplan in the heat of battle, she rose through the ranks Down Under and grabbed her maiden slam title at the Australian Open, adding her name to the short list of players who have defeated Serena in a slam final. The German's success had been hit-and-miss since, as she'd often been hampered by injuries for months. But, finally healthy, Kerber spent the two weeks in London rediscovering her Melbourne mojo. While everyone was busy watching Serena, her sister Venus and various other developing stories, Kerber motored along on the equivalent of a traffic-less Autobahn, never dropping a set and taking out two Top 8 seeds (#5 Halep, #8 Venus) en route to her second slam final of the year.
Kerber would go on to have a career year, finishing at #1 while reaching the Australian, Wimbledon, Olympic, U.S. and WTAF finals in 2016.
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With her standing atop the game once again fully backed up by another "date" the Venus Rosewater dish, Serena then joined with her *sister* Venus and swept through the doubles (winning 12 of 13 sets) for career doubles slam title #14 (their sixth at Wimbledon) as they played in the event for the first time since Serena's odd, stumbling "virus-related" exit from the WD two years earlier.
The vision of the sisters, shoulder-to-shoulder, on a doubles court together hadn't been a common one of late, largely due to Venus' Sjogren's-related issues, unless it was Serena's advancement into the latter stage of slam singles competition (and the inevitable w/d from doubles). 2016's Wimbledon title run, completed with a victory over Timea Babos & Yaroslava Shvedova, came in what was only their ninth appearance in a slam in twenty-four majors (they'd won six of the previous nine slams prior to that). It gave them a spotless 14-0 career mark in slam finals and moved them into a tie with G.Fernandez/Zvereva for the second-most slam titles in the Open era behind Navratilova/Shriver (20).
Heading into the '19 U.S. Open. they've only played in one other slam WD competition the rest of the decade.
For her part, Venus had a resurgent singles performance at the AELTC, too. At 36, she added yet another successful chapter to her long Wimbledon history, turning back the clock to post her best result at SW19 since 2009 while becoming the oldest singles semifinalist since Martina Navratilova's turn as a finalist in 1994.
The #8 seed, Venus tied Amy Frazier for the WTA tour record of 71 career slam MD appearances, then proceeded to defeat #29 Dasha Kasatkina in a 10-8 3rd st in the 3rd Round, then #12 Carla Suarez-Navarro a round later.
Before the U.S. Open had rolled around later that summer, Williams had also added a fifth career Olympic medal in Rio, picking up a Silver in MX doubles with Rajeev Ram.
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Perhaps the best "single match" performance of the tournament came from two-time champ Petra Kvitova.
Kvitova -- aka "Merciless Petra" -- destroyed wrong-place-at-the-wrong-time Sorana Cirstea in the 1st Round. The Czech opened the match by breaking the Romanian. She held at love to take a 3-0 lead after just seven minutes. Eight minutes later, Kvitova closed out a love set win in FIFTEEN minutes with an ace to hold at love again. In all, it was Kvitova's third love game of the set, an opening stanza in which she won 24 of 28 points, losing as many as two in a single game just once. Cirstea played better in the 2nd set, which lasted :38. She at least let it be known that she wasn't going to be simple roadkill, as in the opening game the Swarmette saved two break points and held in a three-deuce game. But Kvitova went up 40/15 in game #5 and got the 3-2 break advantage that she never relinquished. She won 6-0/6-4 in :53, losing just two points on her 1st serve on the day and eight total points on serve. She never faced a BP, and committed just eight unforced errors.
Let me repeat that... Petra Kvitova committed just eight unforced errors. Not in a stretch of play between changeovers, either. In a single match.
Of course, this was a "single match" performance award because, well, two-time SW19 champ Kvitova ended up losing one round later to Ekaterina Makarova in a straight-sets match pushed back, interrupted and delayed for days because of the rainy first week Wimbledon weather.
Oh, Petra.
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Aga Radwanska was destined to never have her Wimbledon dream finish become reality, but her second week run in '16 produced a trio of memorable matches, all for different reasons.
In the 2nd Round, #3 Radwanska looked ready to be toppled by #123 Ana Konjuh. The Croat held three MP, with Aga needed a lucky net cord to survive. Then Konjuh stepped on a ball and severely rolled her ankle with the match tied at 7-7 in the 3rd set. She couldn't recover. Radwanska quickly held and then broke Konjuh, who could hardly move, a game later to win a 9-7 final set.
Ana Konjuh hurts ankle after stepping on tennis ball. #Wimbledon pic.twitter.com/Ql3qGXBEs3
— Jordan Heck (@JordanHeckFF) June 30, 2016
On the Middle Sunday, Radwanska bossed 20-year old Katerina Siniakova, winning their 3rd Rounder 6-3/6-1 in an extended display of "Classic Aga." The frustrated Czech tried with all her might, will and considerable talent to dent the Radwanska exterior, but it was all of no use. She likely had nightmares with Aga's face appearing on every horrible beast her subconscious could dream up all summer long.
Aga was, as she often is, simply naturally brilliant while seemingly barely breaking a sweat throughout the day. At one point she ran off twelve straight points to take a 5-2 lead in the 1st, pulling off a series of amazing shots made to look casually achieved with deft angles, soft wrists and expert anticipation working to create one of those "perfect Radwanska storms" that she was known for. Once again, it was a joy to watch.
Aga #Radwanska in action during her 3rd Round clash with Siniakova #Wimbledon
— #TeamAga (@TeamAgnieszka) July 3, 2016
?? (Newscom) pic.twitter.com/30iUL2v3lj
But the pièce de résistance would be her clash with Dominika Cibulkova
A Round of 16 match that expertly doubled as performance art, it was a contest permeated with a menagerie of rallies that highlighted both touch and power, as well as unyielding tenacity, stubborn insistence and, naturally, a touch of magic dust (we ARE talking about a Radwanska match, after all). In the latter stages of its three-hour length, the shifting-in-momentum, marathon battle of wills left one of the most fit players on tour often bending over in exhaustion, and sometimes going so far as to roll over flat on her back and wish for it all to end. As long as she was declared the winner.
As it turned out, Cibulkova got her wish.
The two had already faced off in a trio of intriguing matches that season. In Indian Wells, Radwanska overcame Cibulkova's power shots and a 5-2 3rd set deficit, saving a MP and winning 7-5. In Madrid, the Pole recovered from a set and 5-3 deficit to force a 3rd, then saw Cibulkova erase a break lead there and emerge the victor. Just before their Wimbledon clash, in Eastbourne, Radwanska led by a set and 2-0 when rain put a stop to her momentum, then the two returned a day later and Cibulkova broke back and pulled out the match.
In this one, Cibulkova served for the match, only to see Radwanska saved a MP and force a 3rd set as the two women would open up the throttle and go full out the rest of the way, with both consistently grabbing leads on their opponent's serve only to see them then steer the momentum back in their favor. Radwanska held a MP in the final set, but the Slovak denied her a chance to celebrate. Cibulkova got a second chance to serve for the match and, finally, on her third MP, Cibulkova's forehand winner (her 56th winner of the match, to Aga's own high count of 37) into the corner sealed a 6-3/5-7/9-7 victory... and gave birth to a million stories that would last a lifetime.
THIS ONE HAD IT ALL!!!!! Cibulkova d. Radwanska, 6-3, 5-7, 9-7. Breathtaking tennis and fight from both. #Wimbledon pic.twitter.com/OLjFSNYspf
— TennisNow (@Tennis_Now) July 4, 2016
While Cibulkova celebrated, Radwanska gave little hint of the likely emotional turmoil roiling inside her as, once again, she had failed to get the most out of a Wimbledon experience and came up short in her career quest for an elusive grand slam title. She warmly hugged the Slovak at the net.
We didn't know it at the time, but Radwanska would only play six more matches at Wimbledon in her career, which would wrap up before the end of the decade, leaving her as likely the tournament's most creative player ever, but with no lap around Centre Court with the Venus Rosewater dish to commemorate all she brought to the table over a stretch of 13 appearances.
[NOTE: I'd include a few clips of some of the many spectacular points and shots from these match-ups, but it appears as if all video evidence of the matches has been wiped clean from Twitter and YouTube. Because, I guess, why would anyone allow people to see great moments from the recent past that amounts to free publicity when you can hoard it in a corner, maintaining ownership rights to something that no one will ever see again, right?]
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Draw notes:
* - due to continual first week rain, there was play on the Middle Sunday ("People's Sunday") for the first time since 2004
* - having won two doubles and a mixed title at majors, Russian Elena Vesnina reached her maiden slam *singles* semifinal at SW19 in '16. The only set she lost en route came in the 4th Round vs. doubles partner Ekaterina Makarova (Vesnina won a 9-7 3rd). She ultimately fell at the mighty hands of Serena (or should it be at the hands of the mighty Serena? Hmmm.), then later that same day lost with Makarova in the WD QF vs. Serena again, this time with Venus by her side. Vesnina was the 12th different Russian in the post-USSR era to reach a slam semi, but (so far) the *only* one to do so this decade since Sharapova at the 2015 Wimbledon.
* -
Ana Ivanovic played her final Wimbledon match. Seeded #23, the Serb
lost 6-2/7-5 to #223 Ekaterina Alexandrova. The Russian had been the last player into qualifying, and had to win 14-12 and 13-11 3rd sets just to reach her maiden slam MD. Ivanovic, the former #1 and '08 Roland Garros champ, reached the semis at Wimbledon in '07, but never reached the QF stage again at SW19 in her final nine appearances. It was a pattern that held up over the course of her career, as in her first 14 slams she won one and reached two more finals, as well as a SF and QF. In the following 34 until her retirement at the end of 2016, she posted just one SF (in Paris in '15, seven years after her title run) and two QF finishes.
* - Anastasija Sevastova, back from a two-year retirement, played in her first Wimbledon since 2011, while Vicky Duval utilized her protected ranking to return to the SW19 MD two years after she'd qualified and won a 1st Round match after being diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma. She lost in the 1st Round to Dasha Kasatkina, the '14 RG girls champ who made her Wimbledon debut in 2016. The Russian reached the 3rd Round, dropping a 10-8 3rd set to Venus Williams.
* - the event was played without Maria Sharapova (suspended) and Victoria Azarenka (knee) for the first time in fourteen years... fifteen if you count Sharapova's run to the girls final in 2002. Azarenka would announce her pregnancy in July and miss the rest of the season, and only played one major ('17 Wimb.) between then and the '18 RG after a long custody battle for her son prevented her from traveling outside the United States. Sharapova wouldn't play in London again until 2018, and would close out the decade without a MD win at Wimbledon since '15.
* - Yaroslava Shvedova reached her first career slam singles QF (at #96, she was sixth-lowest ranked woman to go so far), advancing to the final eight with wins over two seeds (future semifinalist #17 Svitolina, and '14 semifinalist #28 Safarova), a former Wimbledon finalist (Lisicki) and a future SW19 semifinalist (Goerges). She lost there to Venus Williams, but added a run to the women's doubles final (w/ Timea Babos) that included a win over defending champs Martina Hingis & Sania Mirza. That run, too, ended at the hands of Venus, who teamed with Serena to win the final in straight sets.
In the SW19 mixed with Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi, she reached another semifinal.
* - Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Lucie Safarova only reached the QF in doubles, but they previously shared a court in singles in the 1st Round. In a rare match-up of one half of the duo vs. the other, Safarova lost a 3-1 1st set lead as Mattek took the stanza in a TB. Mattek led 5-3 and held a MP in the 2nd, but the Czech won a second TB to force a deciding 3rd set. There, Mattek held two more MP at 5-3, but Safarova surged back to sweep the final games, winning 7-5 in 2:48.
* - Playing in just her fifth career slam MD, six months after reaching the AO Round of 16, Russian Margarita Gasparyan was forced to retire in the 2nd set of her 1st Round match vs. Denisa Allertova. After doing a split step in the middle of the court, Gasparyan has hurt her knee in the opening set. She wouldn't play another slam match for over two years after undergoing three knee surgeries while trying to recover from the injury. She eventually did, winning her first tour title in three years in 2018, returning to the Top 100, recording her first two career Top 10 wins, and then finally returning to Wimbledon in 2019. In the 2nd Round, she led #8 Elina Svitolina (against whom she'd recorded Top 10 win #2 two weeks earlier on the grass) by a set and was serving at 5-4 in the 2nd. She was two points from the win when severe cramps sent her to the ground, eventually leading to her retirement two games later while still leading the match.
* - a year after upsetting reigning semifinalist Simona Halep, Slovak Jana Cepelova (who'd qualified to reach the MD), knocked off '15 finalist Garbine Muguruza in the 2nd Round in a match that lasted just 58 minutes. In three years, Cepelova had posted three Top 3 wins over S.Williams, Halep and Muguruza.
World No.124 Jana Cepelova SHOCKS Muguruza 6-3, 6-2!
— WTA (@WTA) June 30, 2016
Plays @LucieSafarova next in @Wimbledon Third round! pic.twitter.com/ub7YzCTDCo
#124 Cepelova ultimately lost a 12-10 3rd set to Lucie Safarova in the 3rd Round, after having served for the win at 5-3 in the 3rd and holding a MP at 9-8. She's yet to win another slam MD match since.
* - 20-year old Ash Barty, back from a 16-month sabbatical during which she played professional cricket in Australia, picked up the momentum of her slow comeback rollout as she participated at Wimbledon in her first slam matches since her February '17 return. She'd been playing only doubles until the grass season, during which she reached the semis of a $50K and the QF in the tour-level Nottingham event. The 2011 SW19 girls champ was given a WC into Wimbledon qualifying, where she lost in the second round to Luksika Kumkhum. She played in the Wimbledon doubles with Laura Robson, but lost in the 1st Round.
In less than three years, Barty would win a slam title (RG) and become the #1-ranked player in the world.
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As for the Brits, it wasn't a good Wimbledon. At least not in the singles competition.
The signs were apparent even during qualifying, as the opening round saw Freya Christie lose to Risa Ozaki in a 3:42 match that took place over two days. Christie led 5-3 in the 3rd and held MP's, but lost 6-7(7)/7-6(4)/7-5. A round later, Katie Boulter blew a 6-4/5-0 lead (w/ MP) and lost to Rebecca Peterson. A round after *that*, Harriet Dart, lost a 13-11 3rd set to Ekaterina Alexandrova (who'd won a 14-12 3rd set a round earlier).
Laura Robson again was in the MD as a wild card, for the seventh time in eight career appearances since 2009. Five years after Robson upset Angelique Kerber in the 2011 1st Round, she lost to the German this time by a 2 & 2 scoreline. Meanwhile, Heather Watson lost a 12-10 3rd set to Annika Beck in another star-crossed 1st Round match for a Brit. One year after nearly upsetting Serena Williams at SW19, coming within two points of victory, Watson failed to convert three MP in a match that took two days to complete.
The only Brits to escape the first round were Tara Moore and Johanna Konta, the latter at #16 the first British woman to be seeded at Wimbledon since 1984.
But all hope was not dashed.
After her disappointing singles effort,, Heather Watson ended her fortnight in London with a flourish. After she and Henri Kontinen advanced through the first two MX rounds via walkover, they upset defending MX champs Martina Hingis & Leander Paes (from off completing a Career Slam in Paris) in the 3rd Round and went on to win the title (def. Anna-Lena Groenefeld & Robert Farah in the final). Watson became the first British woman to win the crown since Jo Durie in 1987.
WIMBLEDON EFFING CHAMPIONS @henrikontinen !!!!!!!!! pic.twitter.com/scK0PFeoUh
— Heather Watson (@HeatherWatson92) July 10, 2016
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A quarterfinalist in 2011-12, Tamira Paszek was seeking her third consecutive successful SW19 Q-run. The Austrian held MP at 5-4 in the 2nd set of her Q3 match with Czech Andrea Hlavackova, only to turn her ankle in the game and fail to put away the win. Hlavackova forced a 3rd set, where Paszek again took the lead at 5-3 before the Czech took the match even deeper before starting to cramp. She took a medical timeout at 8-8, and both players were treated simultaneously during the 9-8 changeover. Ultimately, Hlavackova couldn't go on and collapsed flat on her back after being forced to retire down 10-9.
Paszek had match point at 5-4 in 2s of #Wimbledon Q3. Twisted ankle & dropped set 7-5 to Hlavackova. Down 3-5 in 3s pic.twitter.com/8kdywkJXql
— Dan Imhoff (@imhoffdan) June 24, 2016
Paszek and Hlavackova both getting medical attention, simultaneously, at 9-8 changeover. Carnage. #Wimbledon pic.twitter.com/tJs74LW4A0
— Ben Rothenberg (@BenRothenberg) June 24, 2016
Hlavackova now cramping badly, collapsed to the ground and shrieked in pain. Now getting mid-game medical attention, again. #Wimbledon
— Ben Rothenberg (@BenRothenberg) June 24, 2016
Hlavackova rises from her chair resumes play, loses point, collapses to ground with cramps again. Retires down 10-9 in third. Paszek wins.
— Ben Rothenberg (@BenRothenberg) June 24, 2016
Remarkable gesture: Paszek stays on court for several minutes after match, tending to ailing Hlavackova. #Wimbledon pic.twitter.com/kAVxfuu502
— Ben Rothenberg (@BenRothenberg) June 24, 2016
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With the lingering after effects of 2013's "Black Wednesday" Day 3 massacre *still* lingering at the All-England Club, 2016's third day of the fortnight saw London rains lead, of the 74 singles and doubles matches scheduled, to 41 being cancelled, 15 interrupted and just 18 completed. Only 6 matches were both started and finished solely on Day 3, with four of those played under the Centre Court roof.
Meanwhile, Aga Radwanska opened the Centre Court schedule and won without incident and, in a previously unscheduled C.C. match, Radwanska's '16 RG conqueror, Tsvetana Pironkova, lost in 1st Round at Wimbledon for the third straight year.
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Anastasia Potapova claimed the Wimbledon Girls title, defeating Ukraine's Dayana Yastremska in a final in which the last game of the match saw the 15-year old Russian fight off two BP, overcome two MP being overturned via replay and ultimately win on her seventh MP of the game. Her win made her the fourth different Hordette to win a junior slam since the start of 2014, the second straight to win Wimbledon (Sofya Zhuk '15), and the fourth Russian girl to lift the SW19 girls title since the fall of the Soviet state.
If you missed the drama in the junior girls #Wimbledon F then the 7 match points are here https://t.co/WCyWMY9ryJ #Potapova
— Eggy (@TheBoiledEgg) July 9, 2016
or
In the girls doubles, Bannerettes Usue Arconada & Claire Liu defeated the Georgian/U.S. duo of Mariam Bolkvadze & Caty McNally. Arconada/Liu were the first all-U.S. girls doubles champs at SW19 since Jennifer Capriati & Meredith McGrath in 1989.
I can't believe it!! Wimbledon singles champion?? beating Aniek van Koot 4-6 6-0 6-4! MATHILDE DUSOL PHOTOGRAPHY pic.twitter.com/45eO5u3Rar
— jiske griffioen (@jiskegriffioen) July 9, 2016
After having become the top-ranked women's wheelchair player in the world in 2015, 31-year old Jiske Griffioen was the winner of Wimbledon's inaugural WC singles competition in 2016, claiming career slam singles title #4 (over a six slam stretch starting with the '15 AO). Griffioen defeated her Dutch countrywoman (and doubles partner) Aniek Van Koot in a three-set final, coming back from a set down to get the win.
Later that summer, Griffioen won the singles and doubles Golds at the Paralympic Games in Rio, giving her at least one title in every major WC competition (s/d in the slams, year-ending Masters and Paralympics) save for the U.S. Open singles, where she'd finished as the runner-up five times between 2007-15. The Wimbledon and Paralympics singles wins would turn out to be the final major singles title Griffioen would win (she'd take the AO doubles the following January) before she retired in October '17. She held the #1 spot in singles for 106 weeks between 2015-17.
In the women's doubles, Yui Kamiji & Jordanne Whiley teamed up to three-peat as the SW19 champs, claiming their eighth slam title as a pair by defeating Griffioen & Van Koot in a third consecutive Wimbledon final. Four years earlier, they'd met for the crown with the Dutch duo taking home the honors.
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In the Invitation doubles competition, Martina Navratilova was a Wimbledon champion yet again. At age 59 (months from her 60th later that summer at the U.S. Open, which would mark the ten-year anniversary of her final pro slam title in the Mixed Doubles in 2006, 32 years after she'd won her first slam crown in 1974). She and Selima Sfar won the final over Lindsay Davenport & Mary Joe Fernandez after taking a 1st set TB 7-5, and then Davenport essentially forced MJF to retire in order to not hurt herself seriously. Fernandez had injured her left leg just prior to the TB, but eschewed any medical attention and went ahead and played the breaker. But she could barely move around the court, limping and hunched over.
The oldest to claim the Invitation event trophy, this was Martina's third win, with the others coming in 2009 (w/ Helena Sukova) and '10 (w/ Jana Novotna)... before Martina Hingis entered the fray and won three straight titles (2011-13 w/ Davenport) before heading back to the regular tour and putting together a *second* Hall of Fame-worthy career there.
Navratilova would win the Invitation title again in 2017 with Cara Black, and they'd win another in '19.
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SEEN AT THE AELTC:
Nike's controversial "babydoll" dress...
Beckhams...
Royals...
Beyonce and Jay Z...
Benedict Cumberbatch and Sophie Hunter...
Natalie Portman...
Diane Keaton...
Bethanie Mattek-Sands' fringe..
Ellen DeGeneres, Maisie Williams and Portia de Rossi...
And this girl...
This girl wins Wimbledon. pic.twitter.com/lB2xerIxwn
— Steph (@StephintheUS) July 2, 2016
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It sometimes seems as if Serena Williams has been chasing SOMETHING for nearly two decades.
First, it was her sister Venus. For a long time, it sort of seemed like the new "rabbit" in the race was acceptance by the masses. While there were still pockets of resistance on that front, the next hurdle to clear eventually became Billie Jean, then Chrissie & Martina. More recently, it's been Steffi. Along the way, she's caught whatever, and whomever, she's chosen to pursue (well, except for that one thing... darn you, Roberta Vinci!).
In her latest Wimbledon final, Williams earned still more warranted grace as another meaningful target fell.
Champion. Again.
— Wimbledon (@Wimbledon) July 9, 2016
Serena Williams joins Steffi Graf on 22 Grand Slam titles after clinching a 7th #Wimbledon crown pic.twitter.com/jSa3cVY54X
At 34 and having last month lost consecutive slam finals for the first time in her career, Williams came into the third major of 2016 with her career-long reputation intact, but with doubt about her ability to sustain her continued, taken-for-granted level of excellence nibbling at the edges of the collective tennis consciousness. No one was rightly expecting anything "bad," and wouldn't hold it against our memory of her if it was suddenly her new "slightly-downgraded" reality, but we didn't necessarily EXPECT her to resemble her old self at the end of two weeks, either. If Williams lost on Saturday, it'd be for a (new) record third straight major final, and she'd fail to be the reigning champion at at least one major at any given time for the first time in four years. The last time that had been the case Serena was a little more than year beyond suffering a life-threatening hematoma and a pulmonary embolism, had just suffered her worst-ever slam loss in the 1st Round in Paris, and was in just her first year as a "thirtysomething," rather than looking around the corner at 35 as she would have been tomorrow. Even by "new" tennis standards, circa 2016, that would indeed be a case of entering into uncharted territory.
Early on at this slam, Williams was challenged by countrywoman Christina McHale in the 2nd Round, dropping the 1st set. She ultimately ended that match in very Serena-esque fashion, firing three straight aces to close out the win. From that moment forward, she'd resembled the Serena we've come to recognize -- and opponents fear -- for so long.
What resulted was a match of high quality, with relatively little standing between the two players. One point here or there stood a chance to swing the balance of power far enough to determine which woman would seize the advantage in a set. Both the 1st and 2nd stanzas of the match seemed to hurtle toward an unsure conclusion. Well, until the final stages when, while Williams lifted her game another notch, Kerber flinched just enough to allow Serena to shove her shoulder through the door and raid yet another grand slam trophy case.
When the German couldn't get back another wide serve a point later Williams reached triple championship point. Another wide serve, this one accompanied by a net approach and a volley winner (her 39th winner on the day) made Serena a slam singles champ for the 22nd time, tying Steffi Graf for Open era preeminence and adding yet another line item to her career resume with a 7-5/6-4 victory.
The legend grows.
— Wimbledon (@Wimbledon) July 9, 2016
Serena is warmly congratulated at the net by Kerber after winning her 22nd Grand Slam title. https://t.co/y4eiNRGvcl
The Moment. pic.twitter.com/xgHQ1DL9sJ
— WTA Reactions (@WTAreactions) July 9, 2016
Williams fell to her back in front of the net, and almost comically threw her legs into the air. Though she didn't betray any evidence of its continued existence at this slam, it was clear that the pressure that had been mounting inside her since her semifinal loss at the U.S. Open last summer had finally been relieved. After a warm meeting with Kerber at the net, Serena flashed a pair of "2's" with her fingers. It didn't take a mathematician to catch the significance of the digits.
Feeling 22.#Wimbledon pic.twitter.com/qjeNNAWCb2
— Wimbledon (@Wimbledon) July 9, 2016
The moment she's been waiting for.@serenawilliams spends some time with her new trophy...#Wimbledon https://t.co/ULR0MGcRgG
— Wimbledon (@Wimbledon) July 9, 2016
Your 2016 @Wimbledon champion @SerenaWilliams and finalist @AngeliqueKerber! ?? #Wimbledon pic.twitter.com/fhIJeF6hcy
— WTA (@WTA) July 9, 2016
after a career filled with instances of difficulty and commotion, tragedy and near-tragedy, a steady stream of controversy and, last but not least, almost unfathomable and enduring success, Serena doesn't really need to chase any mere mortal ever again. Not that she's ever really NEEDED to, no matter how much she may have gotten caught up in it all as she's hand-picked a series of numerical targets in order to provide a tangible goal to motivate her to even more accomplishments than she'd already carved out in a remarkable career that now goes back nearly two decades.
But, over time, it's become about so much more than just numbers, for the "acceptance" part of the "chase" always seems to rear its head every time she knocks down another wall.
Over the past season and week, as she's moved closer to another historical feat, Serena has had to continue to deal with all the same lingering questions of equality and respect on numerous fronts. She's handled it all with grace and class (and a bit of Williams-level bite), far more than can be said of those who choose to openly speak against her or offer up an insinuation that HER accomplishments may not be as worthy or valuable as those of others simply because of the presence or absence of a Y chromosome.
Williams, along with her sister and others, may still have to fight interminable, sometimes less-apparent battles, but HER true gains and victories likely won't be fully seen and/or understood until after her tennis career is over, for it will be then that we'll see her legacy live on in all the girls and boys, within tennis and without, who will be able to use her ability to battle against so many opposing forces as a means to discovering their own inspiration to overcome whatever battle they may face. Be it within themselves, or versus outside forces maddeningly slow to see the light. Serena has carved out a legacy by doing it her way for most of the last twenty years, and there's no reason to think that will
Good for her, and for us.
While some walks are swift and instantly gratifying, others are comparably slow, and with a hard-earned concluding goal maybe not capable of being experienced by all involved in the long fight. But on that day, whenever it comes, Serena can rightly expect that her fingerprints will be able to be found there.
In fact, they'll be found everywhere.
Wimbledon titles for Serena:
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) July 9, 2016
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* - "Retiring is the easy way out. I don't have time for easy." - Venus Williams
* - "It was the toughest match for me, I would say, my whole career." - Aga Radwanska, on her loss to Dominika Cibulkova
* - "I don't think anyone feels older. You have this infinity inside of you that feels like you could go on forever." - Venus Williams
* - "Sometimes when you are fighting, sometimes you want something so bad, it can hinder you a little bit. Now I'm just a little bit more calm. (It) doesn't mean that I have less competitive[ness] at all. I think confidence brews peace and calm in champions. I think that's how I feel.” - Serena Williams
* - "I know that 20 years ago she won here the last time. Of course, I will try to be the next one to win here after Steffi." - Angelique Kerber, on Steffi Graf being the last German to win Wimbledon
* - "For me, it's about obviously holding the trophy and winning, which would make it a better accomplishment for me. For me, it's not enough. But I think that's what makes me different. That's what makes me Serena." - Serena Williams
The sport's most enigmatic star, Garbine Muguruza, chose the 2017 Wimbledon as the site of her next emergence from the sidelines to prove once again that the very best version of *her* game may very well be capable of soaring higher than that of *any* other player around.
Lifting her game, and keeping her frustrating "alternate" self at bay while putting together her third slam final run in the last three years, Garbine Muguruza became the first Spanish woman to win Wimbledon since Conchita Martinez in 1994, as well as the first to become a multiple slam winner since Arantxa Sanchez Vicario won her second crown at Roland Garros that same season.
With her win over Venus Williams in the final, the first to take place under the Centre Court roof and one in which the Spaniard saved 2 SP in the 1st set and never lost another game as she swept the final nine, Muguruza became the only player to defeat BOTH Williams sisters (Serena '16 RG) in a slam final. Her blistering finish closed out a magical two-week run of phenomenon performances that saw her lose just one set (Kerber, 4th Rd.) and drop serve only four times in seven matches.
Time to celebrate! ???? #Wimbledon pic.twitter.com/LYIvKtepcT
— WTA (@WTA) July 15, 2017
One of the interesting footnotes regarding Muguruza's Wimbledon title run was that it was accomplished without regular coach Sam Sumyk, who was off tending to family issues. Fed Cup captain Martinez, the *other* Spanish woman to win at SW19 (when she also defeated a 37-year old -- Martina Navratilova -- in the final), stepped into the role for the fortnight. The results were telling, as was the mood, attitude and overall sense of relief and joy that Muguruza had the entire two weeks.
España celebra ????
— Wimbledon (@Wimbledon) July 15, 2017
Spain has a second #Wimbledon Ladies' Singles Champion... pic.twitter.com/xLCGIlI40y
Still, Muguruza remained loyal. When asked if she had a message for Sumyk after the final, Muguruza simply smiled and said, "Yes, well, here it is," as she looked into the camera and held up the Venus Rosewater dish. The reality of her holding up the trophy was precisely what Sumyk has been trying to convince her was possible since he'd originally signed on in 2015, and stuck around for through any number of (sometimes embarrassing) changeover "coaching sessions."
Of course, Muguruza's career path has been one of the most unique in memory, as she's flashed dominance in certain majors, but has rarely won titles on the "regular tour," and often seems to ""Mugu"" her way to shocking losses in which she seems totally disconnected from not only the fact that's she's spectacularly talented, but also seemingly that she's a tennis player at all.
At the time in 2017, I asked "What happens next?" Muguruza (23y,9m) was the youngest player to win a SECOND slam since Victoria Azarenka (23y,6m) defended her Australian Open title in 2013. But, unlike the then just-returned mother from Belarus, the Spaniard had won slam crowns on two different surfaces, and surely had the ability to win one on hard courts, as well. Muguruza hadn't exactly embraced the title of "slam champion" the first time around beyond the immediate emotional high such an accomplishment produced. Her year as Roland Garros champion often more resembled a "sentence" than a reign, and her relief was evident once it was over. As soon as it was, she won Wimbledon.
It was encouraging that she seemed determined at this slam to seek the winner's circle yet again so soon after having vacated it. No matter her previous experience, she wasn't afraid to return, having proved herself on multiple occasions to be a "big event player" and one with the sort of game that its owner may rightfully believe can rule the court on any occasion. Muguruza, when she's on a roll as she was at SW19 in '17, is one of those players. It was just a matter of whether she was ready to fully embrace and accept the challenge.
Muguruza *did* reach #1 in September, finished '17 having reached the second week of all four majors in a season for her first time ever, and returned to the RG semis in '18. But she's won just two small tour events (both at the same Monterrey tournament) since her Wimbledon title run. We're still waiting to see if she will ever be the player she *should* be.
Finally, in the summer of '19, Mugurza parted ways with Sumyk after a 2nd Round loss at Wimbledon, having recently dropped out of the Top 20 for the first time in nearly four years. They had some great success together, even while often appearing unhappy and enduring a strained, often contentious partnership. Who she picks to replace him could provide answers to a great number of questions. Unfortunately for Muguruza, Martinez is no longer an available option, as she's now coaching Karolina Pliskova.
As always, it's Garbi's move.
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For the first time in eighteen years, the Wimbledon draw was absent *both* Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova. The two-time reigning champ, Williams had won the Australian Open while pregnant with what we'd later know was daughter Alexis Olympia, who was to be born in September; while Sharapova was missing her second consecutive Wimbledon. She'd returned from her drug suspension in April, but had missed Roland Garros after not receiving a WC for either the main draw or qualifying. She was set to play in Wimbledon qualifying for the first time in her career (TV networks lined up to show the rare occurrence live), but then Sharapova withdrew with a thigh injury (originally suffering during the spring clay court campaign in Europe) that scuttled her entire grass court season. She finally returned on the North American hard courts and played her first slam match in nineteen months at the U.S. Open, upsetting #2 Simona Halep in the 1st Round in a nighttime match at Ashe Stadium.
At the same time, new mother (as of December) Victoria Azarenka returned to the tour during the grass season. Wimbledon was her first slam since Roland Garros in '16. After coming back from a set down to defeat CiCi Bellis in the 1st Round, Azarenka advanced to the Round of 16 at the AELTC, losing to Halep. Unfortunately, a custody battle for her son Leo precipitated her withdrawal from the U.S. Open, and ongoing travel restrictions involved with the case meant she didn't play in her next slam event until Roland Garros in the spring of '18.
Venus Williams, 37, arrived on the final Saturday of play with a racket bag filled with history, and looking to add still more. In her ninth Wimbledon final, twenty years after her SW19 debut, she played in her second slam final of 2017, having lost to Serena in January as her 35-year old sister became the oldest Open era slam champ. She hadn't reached *two* finals in a single season since 2003.
At 37, Venus Williams is the oldest finalist at #Wimbledon since Martina Navratilova in 1994 https://t.co/ru84h93FZZ pic.twitter.com/mUxb53x549
— SI Tennis (@SI_Tennis) July 13, 2017
After coming into the fortnight riding a wave of unwelcome headlines following her involvement in a tragic auto accident in Florida in June, Williams altered the narrative of her story by turning back the clock with a series of vintage performances in which she expertly downed a rising Belgian (Elise Mertens), an underrated Chinese talent (Wang Qiang, after trailing 6-4/4-3), two promising teens (Naomi Osaka and Ana Konjuh), the 20-year old reigning Roland Garros champion (Alona Ostapenko), and Britain's first female Wimbledon semifinalist in thirty-nine years (Johanna Konta), serving with great force and firing penetrating forehands with a furious tenacity that allowed her to control the court against her much younger opponents, handcuffing their ability to adequately fight for their Wimbledon lives.
Williams didn't get the storybook ending of a sixth SW19 Ladies crown, but her appearance in her second 2017 slam singles final officially moved the living legend out of the role of simply being a nostalgia-laced centerpiece at the season's celebratory dinner. Her year-long resurgence would continue in New York, as she'd reach her third slam semi of '16 (her most in 15 years) and finish the season at #5, her best standing since 2010.
The (seemingly) prerequisite first-time major semifinalist for this slam -- the 17th consecutive with at least one -- was veteran Slovak Magdalena Rybarikova. Always a good grass courter, the 28-year old's career has often been injury-plagued. She'd returned in February after an seven-month absence (wrist & knee surgeries) and was in the Wimbledon draw using a protected ranking. She caught fire during the grass season, going 18-2 on all levels, winning two $100K ITF titles, reaching the Nottingham semis and then overcoming what had been, considering her other grass court results, a spectacularly poor history (2-9, w/ eight 1st Rd. exits) at SW19. She defeated #3 Karolina Pliskova, Petra Martic and #25 CoCo Vandeweghe en route to her first major semifinal, where she lost to Muguruza.
Rybarikova had never advanced beyond the 3rd Round in any of her previous thirty-five major MD appearances.
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Petra Kvitova was still not able to completely close her racket hand nor feel the tips of all her fingers, the lingering result of offseason emergency hand surgery after having survived a home invasion knife attack in the Czech Republic in December. She'd returned earlier than anticipated, deciding to play Roland Garros just to get the whole notion of a "comeback" out of the way, and even won a match when just being able to be on the court at all was a victory all its own.
But then she won the grass court Birmingham title in her second event back. It suddenly thrust the two-time SW19 champ into a stunning position at the All-England Club, labeled the "favorite" by many in a Serena-less draw. The reality was that it was too much to ask of a player who was not 100% and barely had any match play to speak of. After winning a 1st Round match, playing in the sort of hot conditions that had often exacerbated her asthmatic condition, the #11-seeded Kvitova fell to Madison Brengle in three sets.
While Kvitova wasn't up to some sort of historic slam performance, as maybe the most well-liked player on tour, Kvitova managed to legitimately bring out the good in pretty much everyone else simply by just showing up.
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The sea change in British women's tennis that had begun when Johanna Konta first represented the nation in the spring of 2012 had perhaps its biggest Wimbledon moment in 2017.
There was some more of the (old) same, though.
Laura Robson, a wild card *again* (make that in seven of eight MD appearances), lost in the 1st Round to Beatriz Haddad Maia. Another wild card, Katie Boulter, made her slam debut. The 20-year old put up a fight against Christina McHale, but fell in three. Heather Watson once more held her own, pulling the upset over #18 Anastasija Sevastova in the 2nd Round, but couldn't follow it up and lost a round later to Victoria Azarenka. She then made *another* run to the MX doubles final with Henri Kontinen, but couldn't win her second title in a row.
Watson was one of two Brits to reach the 3rd Round, the most since 1986, joined by #6-seeded Konta, who became the first British woman to reach the Wimbledon semis since Virginia Wade in 1978.
Konta's steady climb up the rankings peaked over the course of the 2016-17 seasons as she reached the Australian Open semis (2016), won her biggest career title (Miami 2017), posted back-to-back Top 10 campaigns and climbed as high as #4 following this Wimbledon. During the '17 grass court season, she recorded wins over a pair of Top 2 players -- #1 Angelique Kerber in Eastbourne, and then #2 Simona Halep in the QF at SW19 -- to run her number of Top 10 wins over the two-season stretch to eleven. Konta's headline-grabbing push ended with a loss to Venus Williams.
Konta would have a hard time living up to the higher level of expectation in 2018, going through a series of coaches while nearly falling out of the Top 40, before rebounding with another new coach and more well-rounded game in '19 (when she reached the semis at a third different major in Paris).
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Draw notes:
* - when Czechs went 0-6 in the 2nd Round, it meant none reached the 3rd Round at Wimbledon for the first time since 2009
* - Naomi Osaka made her Wimbledon debut, reaching the 3rd Round just as she had in her maiden slam appearances in the draws in Melbourne, Paris and New York in 2016. After upsetting #22 Barbora Strycova in the 2nd Round, Osaka lost to #10 V.Williams.
Meanwhile, newly-minted Roland Garros champ Alona Ostapenko didn't fade away at Wimbledon. The '14 girls champ became the first maiden slam winner in eleven years (Kim Clijsters '06) to reach the QF in her next major appearance, defeating #4 seed Elina Svitolina in the Round of 16, her second Top 10 victory at SW19 in three years. She, too, lost to Venus.
A year after falling to Aga Radwanska in a 9-7 3rd set after having rolled her ankle after stepping on a ball at 7-7, Ana Konjuh seemed to be doing the Pole's "bidding" a year later. The #27 seed, she knocked off Sabine Lisicki (def. Aga in '13 SF) in the 1st Round, and #8 Dominika Cibulkova (def. Aga 2016 4th Rd.) in the 3rd before falling in the Round of 16 to -- altogether now -- Miss Venus Williams.
* - for the first time since making her tournament debut in 2012 (after winning the SW19 girls title a year earlier), Ash Barty played a MD singles match at Wimbledon. Fully back on tour after her sabbatical from the sport, the #56-ranked Aussie lost to #4-seed Elina Svitolina in the 1st Round by a 7-5/7-6 score. Playing doubles at SW19 with Casey Dellacqua for the first time since 2014 (they'd reached three slam finals in '13 when Barty was just 17 years old), the pair followed up their RG final by losing in three sets in the QF to eventual champions Makarova/Vesnina.
* - having qualified to reach her first Wimbledon MD, 27-year old Arina Rodionova recorded her first career slam MD win over #16 Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, who'd advanced to the QF in London the previous year. Pavlyuchenkova had led 6-3/5-4, and had seven MP in the 2nd set. On her own third MP, Rodionova won 3-6/7-6(6)/9-7.
* - Johanna Konta's semifinal run had picked up steam in the 2nd Round when she survived a 2nd Round encounter with Donna Vekic. The Croat had defeated Konta in the Nottingham final weeks earlier, picking up her first WTA title since 2014, and had numerous opportunities to surge ahead in their second match-up.
Vekic served for the 1st set at 5-3, only to DF on break point, then lost a quality 3:10 three-setter 7-6(4)/4-6/10-8 as they two combined for nearly 100 winners and were seperated by just three points (130-127 Konta) on the day. The Brit comforted the teary Vekic at the net after the match.
* - after undergoing a foot surgery in January, Sloane Stephens didn't walk until April. Having dropped outside the Top 100, she made her return to tennis at Wimbledon (via a protected ranking) after an 11-month absence from the tour (she'd last played at the Rio Olympics). She lost in the 1st Round to Alison Riske.
Her ranking would fall as low as #957 during the North American hard court season, from which Stephens would launch quite possibly the most remarkable comeback in tennis history, as by the end of the summer she'd won her maiden slam crown at the U.S. Open and was ranked #17.
* - despite being in the middle of what would eventually be the worst "year-after" campaign for any year-ending #1 in WTA history (she was the first to end the next season outside the Top 20 without having a major injury or retirement play a part in the fall), Angelique Kerber showed signs of what would eventually be a rebound.
In the 3rd Round, the German rallied from 6-4/4-2 down (two points from 5-2) to defeat Shelby Rogers, then in the Round of 16 gave Garbine Muguruza her sternest test of the fortnight (in a clash of the last two Wimbledon runner-ups) in what was possibly Kerber's best match of '17 despite the 4-6/6-4/6-4 scoreline in the Spaniard's favor. The opening set was the only set Muguruza lost in the entire tournament.
A year later, Kerber returned to the All-England Club and took the title.
* - meanwhile, the 2017 Wimbledon was (likely, as nothing is yet "official") the last appearance at SW19 of two of the decade's most intriguing personalities: Tsvetana Pironkova and Jelena Jankovic.
2010 semifinalist (and the bane of Venus Williams' Wimbledon existence) Pironkova lost in the 2nd Round to Caroline Wozniacki. The Bulgarian hasn't played a match since, and became a mother in April 2018.
Former #1, '08 U.S. Open finalist and five-time Wimbledon Round of 16 participant Jankovic fell in a 1st Round match to Aga Radwanska, her second loss to the Pole at SW19 in three years. JJ had served at 5-4 and 6-5 in the 1st set, then didn't win another game, losing 7-6(3)/6-0.
Playing in her 56th consecutive slam at the U.S. Open later that summer, Jankovic lost in the 1st Round again, giving her three straight one-and-out exits in majors for the first time in her career. The Serb had back surgery in October '17 and missed the entire '18 season, then eye surgery the following May. She hasn't played since, and has rarely been seen. Still, no official retirement announcement has ever been made.
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In the most dominant performance in a slam WD final in over forty-six years ('71 AO - Court/Goolagong), Ekaterina Makarova & Elena Vesnina became the first-ever post-Soviet Russian duo to claim the Wimbledon women's doubles title, crushing Chan Hao-Ching & Monica Niculescu 6-0/6-0 in a fifty-five minute match. The only other Wimbledon WD final to end with the double-bagel scoreline came in 1953.
A year earlier, Vesnina had reached the Wimbledon singles semifinals. In 2017, she and Makarova bull-rushed their way to the doubles crown, dropping just one set along the way.
The SW19 doubles win added to the Hordette pair's other big event results, bringing them one RG title away from completing not only a Career Doubles Slam, but a Career Golden Doubles Slam. With their '16 Rio Gold, they only needed a win in Melbourne to join the Williams sisters (and Bryan twins and Aussie "Woodies" on the men's side) with all four major titles, plus the Olympics, on their resume. They also won the WTA Finals in '16, meaning they have five of the six biggest WD titles. No women's duo has ever won all six (mostly because Navratilova/Shriver never teamed in an Olympics, and Venus & Serena only played doubles at the season-ending championships once, but still).
Makarova/Vesnina, having already lost an Australian Open final in 2014, returned to the final in Melbourne in 2018 with the chance to pick up their missing title, but lost to Babos/Mladenovic. The duo haven't played together since the spring of that season, as Vesnina has been out while having a baby (November '18).
In what turned out to be her final Wimbledon, Martina Hingis picked up one additional title at the All-England Club. The Swiss Miss (though she wouldn't be for long, as she got married in 2018) took home her sixth career Mixed doubles crown (her second in three years at Wimbledon) while partnering Brit Jamie Murray, defeating defending champs Heather Watson & Henri Kontinen in the final. In 2016, she'd picked up what would be the second leg of a Career MX Slam with Leander Paes. The win was the 23rd overall slam title of Hingis' career.
Hingis' title run made up for her and '17 partner Latisha Chan's shocking meltdown in the women's doubles QF after leading by a double-break at 4-1 in the 3rd vs. Groenefeld/Peschke, then never winning another game. The loss proved to be Hingis' only defeat on the grass that summer, as in addition to her MX title she and Chan had swept both the Mallorca & Eastbourne titles before arriving at the All-England Club.
Hingis would win two final slams at the U.S. Open, sweeping the events with Chan and Murray. At the end of the season, Hingis announced her final retirement, and revealed that Chan had known of her plans since the start of the year (she'd been mostly partnering her sister, but couldn't pass up the opportunity to play the season with the Hall of Famer).
Hingis became a mother for the first time in 2019, and has yet to reveal her future plans. Likely of note, she undertook brief coaching stints with Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, Sabine Lisicki and Belinda Bencic in 2013-15, and is the daughter of a coach, Melanie Molitor.
What had been expected to be a big storyline in the doubles competition was the quest of Bethanie Mattek-Sands & Lucie Safarova to complete a "Team Bucie" Slam by winning their fourth straight major. They never really got the chance. After the duo reached the 2nd Round in doubles, BMS suffered what, at the time, appeared to be devastating knee injury (it turned out to be a dislocated kneecap and ruptured patellar ligament, but not the potential career-ender it appeared to be as her soul-crushing screams in injury's immediate aftermath carried over the AELTC grounds) in a singles match vs. Sorana Cirstea.
As a horde of trainers and members of her team huddled around her (even Safarova was called in from wherever she'd been on the grounds to offer comfort), Mattek was ultimately carried off on a stretcher and didn't play again until the following March. But while BMS's career didn't end with the injury, the run of "Team Bucie" essentially did. The pair only played eight more matches together, and just six in grand slam competition (4-2, with most of those in a QF in a return to SW19 in '18), due to various combinations of Safarova illness/injury or (another) Mattek-Sands knee surgery, and then the Czech announced that she would retire after the 2019 Australian Open. Even *that* didn't pan out, as she was unable to play there, and by the time she was ready for a final multi-event farewell -- Stuttgart, where she reached the final, Prague & RG -- in the spring it was Mattek who couldn't play. Instead, Safarova teamed with Pavlyuchenkova, Barbora Stefkova and Dominika Cibulkova.
Safarova's career ended after a 1st Round WD loss in Paris to Kenin/Petkovic, and during Wimbledon she announced she was pregnant with her first child.
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On the anniversaries of 2013's "Black Wednesday," more craziness ensued:
* - on June 26, in Eastbourne, defending champ Dominika Cibulkova lost in the opening match to WC Heather Watson, and four lucky losers won MD matches.
Diving headfirst into #Wimbledon like... pic.twitter.com/Ok9iXKIDF7
— Wimbledon (@Wimbledon) July 5, 2017
* - on Day 3 at Wimbledon, it was "Flying Ant Day" as the newly-emerged insects swarmed the AELTC grounds. Meanwhile, six women's seeds fell, including two-time Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova.
In the juniors, #3-seeded Claire Liu won the all-Bannerette singles final -- the first at SW19 since 1992 -- with a 6-2/5-7/6-2 victory over unseeded Ann Li. Liu, trying to avoid becoming the first girl to lose back-to-back slam finals since 2011 (Monica Puig AO & RG), served for the match at 6-2/5-4, and had triple MP before Li forced a 3rd set. Liu reclaimed control from there, becoming the first U.S. girl to win the Wimbledon title since Chanda Rubin. On the heels of having reached the Roland Garros girls final on clay, the win completed a dominant grass court campaign for Liu, who'd also won the Roehampton tune-up event. Liu became the girls #1 following Wimbledon.
With Whitney Osuigwe having won the RG junior crown, Liu's title marked the first time in 28 years that U.S. girls had combined to win consecutive major titles. Amanda Anisimova would win the U.S. Open juniors later that summer, making it *three* straight slam champs.
In the doubles, Serb Olga Danilovic & Slovenian Kaja Juvan claimed the title with a win in the final over the all-Bannerette duo of Caty McNally (also a RU in '16) & Osuigwe.
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20-year old would-be wheelchair superstar Diede de Groot (aka "Diede the Great") finally made her Wimbledon debut in 2016, and all she did was dominate the field (losing just fourteen games while never dropping a set) en route to the singles title to pick up her first career slam crown, then come within a set of sweeping *both* competitions before finishing as the doubles runner-up. (She'd complete a sweep of the s/d crowns at SW19 in '18, as well as in New York that year, then Melbourne and Paris the next.)
The rise of de Groot, a protege of WC legend Esther Vergeer, was something that was seen well in advance. The previous season, while still a teenager, she'd won the season-ending Masters Doubles title, Silver in the Paralympic Doubles in Rio, as well as having a 3rd place finish in the '16 Masters and 4th in the Paralympic Singles.
At Wimbledon, she struck 31 winners (vs. 14 for runner-up Sabine Ellerbrock) in the final, finishing with a 90-39 edge in the category for the tournament as she followed up Dutch countrywoman Jiske Griffioen's win in the inaugural Wimbledon WC singles competition in '16.
This Wimbledon turned out to be the final slam appearance for Griffioen. The #1 seed, after losing to Aniek Van Koot in her opening singles match, Griffioen withdrew from the doubles due to injury. She and Van Koot had been the #1 seeds, thus she was substituted in the pairing by alternate Dana Mathewson of the U.S.. The new duo lost to defending champs Yui Kamiji & Jordanne Whiley, who advanced to their fifth straight Wimbledon final, where they claimed their fourth consecutive title with a win over de Groot & Marjolein Buis.
Kamiji came as close to reaching the singles final in '16 as has in any of the four Wimbledon singles competitions held in the decade, falling in a 3rd set TB to Ellerbrock in the semifinals, one game short of playing in the final for the only WC slam title that has so far eluded her in her career.
Griffioen, 32, never played another event, retiring in October due to "lacking the fire" to continue to compete. "Winning Roland Garros in 2015 and reaching the world No.1 spot was one of my highlights," she said. "And winning the first title at Wimbledon was very special. My name will be on top of the list forever, that’s a special feeling."
Meanwhile, heading into the 2019 U.S. Open, de Groot has appeared in every slam singles and doubles final in the decade since her two SW19 championship matches in '17. In Paris in '19, she became the first player in WC history to win and simultaneously hold all eight slam titles.
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It was two in a row for Cara Black & Martina Navratilova, as they successfully defended their Invitation Doubles title with a win in the final over Arantxa Sanchez Vicario & Selima Sfar.
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SEEN AT THE AELTC:
A Princess (Kate) and Prince (William)...
A King (Juan Carlos, of Spain)...
Another King (named Billie Jean)...
A Dame (Maggie Smith) and a Sir (Ian McKellen)...
And a Mother of Dragons (Emilia Clarke)...
Beckham...
Spike (Lee)...
Bradley C. (Cooper)...
And "old" and new Spanish tennis royalty...
Unbridled celebrations.
— Wimbledon (@Wimbledon) July 15, 2017
Spain's two ladies' singles champions share a moment ????#Wimbledon pic.twitter.com/tMk6nODVF9
Latvian disapproval...
An Invitational Invitation (and hijinks)...
And the two-time reigning Queen (soon-to-be-new) Mum, back home in the States...
Pregnant but Priming: Serena Williams is already plotting her post-baby domination #WTA https://t.co/9jrAsbozUv
— Douglas Robson (@dougrobson) June 16, 2017
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Twenty-three years ago, a Spanish woman showed up at Centre Court and ripped a storybook slam singles title from the clutches of a 37-year old Wimbledon legend, denying her a chance to relive her former glory one more time. Today, it happened again.
Your 2017 #Wimbledon Ladies' Singles Champion... @GarbiMuguruza pic.twitter.com/xbXhmTeNRp
— Wimbledon (@Wimbledon) July 15, 2017
In 1994, when Conchita Martinez defeated all-time great Martina Navratilova in the aforementioned SW19 Ladies final, Garbine Muguruza was a nine-month old Venezuelan. Born in Caracas the previous October, Muguruza would first wield a tennis racket at age three, move to Spain along with her family at age six, where she'd train at the Bruguera Tennis Academy near Barcelona and ultimately decide to represent her adopted nation as she began her tennis career.
In 2015, Venezuela-born Muguruza became the first Spanish woman since the Martinez/Sanchez glory years to reach a slam singles final, falling to Serena Williams at Wimbledon. A season later, she'd defeat Williams to claim her maiden slam crown at Roland Garros. Thirteen months later, on the third Saturday of July, she played in another Wimbledon championship match, this time against another Williams, 37-year old Venus, who was looking to cap off yet another of her recent resurgent runs with her eighth career slam win, her first major title since 2008 and one which would make her the oldest women to win a slam singles crown in the Open era. But serving as the "secret weapon" in Muguruza's corner -- her players box, in fact, serving as her coach while Sam Sumyk has been away -- was none other than Spanish Fed Cup Captain Martinez, who knows a little something about defeating a 37-year old legend with "USA" next to her name on the most fabled tennis court in the world.
It was almost as if history was destined to repeat itself. And it did, too.
would all that Williams had going for her be enough to overcome Muguruza, who'd been displaying a Serena-like dominance for most of the tournament? The 23-year old, while garnering far fewer headlines, had gone about *her* business at this tournament with a ruthless efficiency. Free of the self-imposed shackles that her year-long stint as RG champ turned out to be -- she was playing in her very first final since winning in Paris in 2016 -- Muguruza had for two weeks controlled her sometimes troublesome mental game while also flashing a nearly untouchable physical one, especially on serve, where she was broken just four times in six matches, three of those coming in her 4th Round clash with then-#1 Angelique Kerber before the Spaniard finally ended her stay atop the WTA rankings. She'd lost just one of thirteen sets while advancing to her third career slam final.
What happened was a 1st set which would often be a contest in which one, and then the other, attempted to corral a wayward forehand wing, hoping that it wouldn't become a lethal liability on the biggest points of the day. Ultimately, the match turned on a proverbial dime, as Muguruza battled her way out of a corner when her back was seemingly plastered against the wall, then used the momentum she achieved to grab a bigger advantage, quickly seizing total control of the match. As her game strengthened, that of Williams began to lose the strong grip it'd shown throughout this Wimbledon and, in the end, left Venus to lament her missed opportunity late in the opening set in a game that turned out to be *the* key swing moment of the final. While Williams' latest fairy tale run came to an end by the close of the day, Muguruza had managed to start yet another chapter in a story of her own that is largely still unwritten.
With a look of determination on her face and the confident body language that have become a common sight at this Wimbledon, Muguruza would not be slowed. She held for 4-0, then saw Williams' now error-strewn arsenal lead to a love/40 advantage. A backhand down the line gave Muguruza a triple break lead at 5-0. Her dominance at this event was no longer a "quiet" one. In control of all within her reach, she took a 40/love lead while trying to serve out the title. It took her three MP attempts to get the job done, with a failed replay challenge on the first, then ending with a successful one on the third that overturned a bad line call of a Williams baseline shot, but she once again closed the door without a break in stride. The call change, somewhat anticlimactically, ended the match, but it made Muguruza's 7-5/6-0 victory official.
The moment @GarbiMuguruza won #Wimbledon... pic.twitter.com/u2gg7xv55Z
— Wimbledon (@Wimbledon) July 15, 2017
Recounting the words of encouragement she received from her first Wimbledon final appearance in 2015, Muguruza said, "Two years ago I lost to Serena and she told me maybe one day I would win. Here I am!" Since then, she's won both of her major titles. So, aside from everything else, Serena can see the future, too. Of course she can.
* - "They’re in my mouth and in my hair and everywhere – we need to do something. Is there a spray? I want to be here to focus on tennis, not eating bugs." - Caroline Wozniacki, to the chair umpire on Flying Ant Day
* - "I don't think about my age. It is not a factor." - Venus Williams
* - "My mind is more equipped this time." - Garbine Muguruza, on playing in her second Wimbledon final
* - "I had the hardest match today against Venus. She's such an amazing player. I grew up watching her play... sorry!" - Garbine Muguruza, addressing the crown (and Williams) after the final
* - "Two years ago I lost to Serena and she told me maybe one day I would win. Here I am!" - Garbine Muguruza
Fun with a new friend...#Wimbledon pic.twitter.com/hSS6b2cWXH
— Wimbledon (@Wimbledon) July 15, 2017
In the final two Wimbledons of the 2010's, slam history was on the racket of Serena Williams, who was one win away from what has turned out to be an elusive 24th career slam crown. They were the sort of moments designed to bring out the very best in a champion. And they did... in both of her opponents.
Angelique Kerber's successful rebound from a disappointing '17 season hit its zenith at SW19, as she won her first Wimbledon title, defeating a string of NextGen stars en route to the final and then handling 23-time slam champ Serena Williams 6-3/6-3 to claim the Venus Rosewater dish. She lost just one set the entire fortnight (to '17 junior champ Claire Liu in the 2nd Round, odd as it was), got three-quarters of the way to a Career Slam, became the first German to win at Wimbledon since 1996, the first to win a third major since 2011, and just the second (w/ Venus) to defeat Serena in *two* slam finals.
Sealed with a kiss ??#Wimbledon @AngeliqueKerber pic.twitter.com/v2FHKXXoVb
— Wimbledon (@Wimbledon) July 14, 2018
After Kerber had slowly built her SW19 resume over the decade -- semifinal in '12, final in '16... -- perhaps it was fitting that it took a while to get started in the Ladies final. Literally.
Naturally, because the AELTC couldn't get out of its own way even while patting itself on the back at every turn, Williams and Kerber were forced to wake up on final day not really knowing *when* they'd get to play. The indeterminate wait began at 1 p.m. Centre Court time. The issue was kicked up because of what had happened on Friday.
First, an interminable men's semifinal (6:36, 26-24 in the 3rd... a bang-your-head-against-the-wall, some-think-they-deserve-more-money-for-this-kind-of-senses-numbing-crap? match which pretty much single handledly led to the institution of a final set TB rule in '19) between Kevin Anderson and John Isner (yep, Isner in a long, boring match that threatened to never end... shocking, I know) dragged on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and... well, you get the idea, and pushed back the second men's semi between Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal so far that it was only barely half-finished when it walked up to Wimbledon's 11 p.m. curfew (???). So off everyone went to bed, set to meet up again on Saturday. Then another two-plus hour delay occurred when the completion of *that* match turned into another five-set affair that went to 10-8.
Finally, at 4:16 in the afternoon, the Wimbledon Ladies final began. And, with that, change was going to come.
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Williams' appearance in the final was the tenth of her Wimbledon career, but the first since her return to the game after giving birth to daughter Olympia. It would be her first attempt in a final to win her 24th career slam singles crown to tie Margaret Court's all-time mark.
It would prove to to not be an easy task.
A similar thing could be said about follow-up success for previous year's Wimbledon semifinalists, all of whom were eliminated early in an upset-laden tournament. Ten seeds lost in the 1st Round, and fourteen in the first two. Amongst the early victims were all four of 2017's semifinalists.
Defending champion Garbine Muguruza lost in the 2nd Round to Alison Van Uytvanck, the earliest exit by a DC since Steffi Graf in 1994, while runner-up Venus Williams went out at the hands of Kiki Bertens (in an 8-6 3rd) in the 3rd Round. Semifinalists Johanna Konta (2nd) and Magdalena Rybarikova (1st) both failed to escape the first four days of competition, as well.
As it was, no Top 10 seed reached the QF at the event, the worst showing at any Wimbledon in the Open era. None of the top four seeds advanced to the Round of 16, another first.
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Almost, @DKasatkina... ??#Wimbledon pic.twitter.com/RnnVsULghd
— Wimbledon (@Wimbledon) July 10, 2018
Meanwhile, Russian's Dasha Kasatkina put on something of a show. The 21-year old fell to eventual champ Angelique Kerber 6-3/7-5 in the QF, her second straight such result in a major in '18, but it was wise to pay no attention to the rather "routine" scoreline.
A meeting between the two would be expected to have many things, from a large dose of variety, long rallies, the Russian pulling off every shot in the How-To-Tennis guidebook (and a few only available in the "updated" version you can purchase online), the German's defensive scrambles turning into suddenly shocking offense, and several instances when you see sweat glistening off both as they bend over in exhaustion after a particularly exciting adventure caper (complete with its own catchy theme song) and recognize that *this* is what guts and glory look like in a sports setting. And that's what we got, too. In fact, about the only thing we didn't see was a 3rd set.
As things played out a pattern developed for the swashbuckling Kasatkina, who'd often fluctuate between being brilliant and frustratingly inconsistent all day. A little more steadiness from the grinding *and* flashy Hordette and this could have been a Wimbledon classic. Kerber, by contrast, played a steady game. No big highs, but also no big lows. She staked out the "middle" and maintained it from the first point until the last. It turned out to be her key to victory.
The final game turned out to be a semi-masterpiece of guile and audacity. Kerber actually led 40/15 and it seemed as if it would end quickly, but it turned out to be a 16-point, 7-MP tussle highlighted by a 25-shot rally (to reach MP #6) that saw, just to name a few moments, Kasatkina slip and fall behind the baseline, then recover and race back to the other side of the court, pull off a drop shot, but then see it answered by a point-winning volley from Kerber.
Seven match points. A 25 shot rally. Hawk-Eye drama.
— Wimbledon (@Wimbledon) July 10, 2018
The best game of #Wimbledon so far? pic.twitter.com/d0jXhLZ2ag
A point later Kerber just missed completing a drop and lob combo to win the match (on MP #6), then finally did on MP #7 when Kasatkina failed to get back the German's forehand as Kerber's win set the stage for what turned out to be her third career slam title run.
Game recognises game ??#Wimbledon pic.twitter.com/xJTtcWXJ6S
— Wimbledon (@Wimbledon) July 10, 2018
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Armed with two-handed swings from both sides, Selesian angled shots, and an array of magical weapons that included slices, drops, superior anticipation and movement, Hsieh Su-wei once again flashed her upset skills vs. a top player in a major in her 3rd Round match against reigning RG champ Simona Halep. The 32-year old Taiwanese vet had already defeated both Muguruza and Radwanska in Melbourne in '18, and added the Romanian's name to her victim list in London.
Halep (as sometimes happens to Hsieh's foes) didn't give a particularly admirable accounting of her in-match problem-solving skills, while her own form was off, and her serve wasn't up to par. Lured into a series of cross court rallies that made her opponent's game plan even "easier" to implement, when she wasn't off balance or fooled so well that she couldn't even offer a stab at a defensive get, Halep often found herself racing in vain to chase down shots.
Even after Hsieh had pushed things to a 3rd, though, Halep held a seemingly commanding lead (5-2) there, and served at 5-3. A game later, she held a MP on Hsieh's serve. Halep's worst mistake may have been to allow Hsieh back into a match she appeared to have it on her racket in spite of everything Hsieh had thrown at her.
After Halep didn't convert her MP, she never saw another. In fact, she didn't win another game. Hsieh converted a BP and served for the match at 6-5. She fell down 15/40, but then Hsieh proceeded her pull Halep around the court as if she were on the end of a string. Side to side, up and back. Essentially, at times, the Romanian looked like a fidget spinner in all-white tennis gear. Every stroke was a scramble since she didn't really know where any were going, a situation made worse by the ever-present fear that Hsieh might just suddenly step in and pull off a hard down the line shot. The BP's squandered in game #11 left Halep just 7-of-23 on the day, 2-of-10 in the 3rd. Hsieh served out third career slam Round of 16 result, her second of '18.
#1 Halep's exit was the ninth by a Top 10 seed in the first three rounds, an all-time record.
She's make up for it a year later by winning the singles title.
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In her final Wimbledon classic, former junior champ and Ladies finalist Aga Radwanska, recently back from a multi-month injury layoff, avoided a shocking 1st Round upset at the hands of an unheralded Romanian.
Against #197 Gabriela Ruse, Radwanska jumped out to a 5-0 lead in the 1st. But the qualifier, in her slam MD debut, began to find her footing, playing fearless tennis and going for all her shots. She managed to close to within 5-3 in the 1st before Radwanska finally finished off the set, then broke the Pole's serve to take the 2nd. The two were locked in a tight battle in the 3rd, tied at 4-4. Pulling Aga in to the net, then firing passing shots by her, Ruse converted a GP with a net cord shot that plopped onto Radwanska's side of the court to go up 5-4.
Game #10, with Radwanska serving to stay in the tournament, with her worst-ever Wimbledon result potentially at hand, turned out to be a showcase for all the "murky" things that seem to happen around Radwanska on the AELTC grounds. It wasn't quite of the Konjuh-steps-on-a-ball-and-turns-her-ankle variety, but it was surely memorable in its own right. The game lasted fourteen minutes, had 23 points, went to deuce eight times, saw Ruse hold SIX match points... and then ended when Radwanska, somehow, managed to hold for 5-5. Perhaps the key point, Ruse's 6th and final MP, came when after she'd gotten into position for a career-altering win by hitting out, she tried to drop shot Radwanska to end the match. The ball failed to make it over the net, and the sense of a lost opportunity swept over the windswept SW19 landscape. A game later, Ruse went up 30/love, but soon found herself BP down. An error off the Romanian's racket got Aga the break and the chance to serve out the match.
What a battle.
— Wimbledon (@Wimbledon) July 2, 2018
After saving six match points in the third set, @ARadwanska finally prevails 6-3, 4-6, 7-5 against Grand Slam debutant Elena-Gabriela Ruse#Wimbledon pic.twitter.com/BLyDu2w0sc
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Katerina Siniakova had a wild Wimbledon.
First, the Czech escaped her 1st Round match with CoCo Vandeweghe. The Bannerette was nursing an ankle injury and took a bad spill at the net, but still led Siniakova 5-2 in the 3rd set and served for the match at 5-3. Three days later, Siniakova experienced a very vivid case of deja vu. She likely began the day feeling good about her chances against Ons Jabeur. She held a 4-0 head-to-head lead over the Tunisian, having never lost a set against her. After splitting sets, Jabeur took a 5-2 lead (and had a MP) in the 3rd, then served for the match at 5-3. Sound familiar? She couldn't do it, and in the blink of an eye Siniakova was serving for the match at 6-5 (she fell behind 15/40), then again at 7-6 (she fell behind 15/40), then again at 8-7. She finally won it in 2:27. She needed every last one of the 117 points she won (vs. Jabeur's 115) on the day.
What goes around comes around, though. Even after falling and having her hip looked at by a trainer, Siniakova led the Camila Giorgi in the 3rd by a 6-3/4-2 score, and held a MP at 5-4. But the Italian saved it, got a late break and soon saw herself serving for the set at 6-5. Siniakova got the break to send things to a tie-break. There, she saved a SP via 25-shot rally at 6-5, but Giorgi immediately rebounded and took the final two points to win 8-6 and send things to a 3rd. The tearful Czech was left to lament what might have been during the changeover. And, later, after the match.
From there, Giorgi seized control. She led 5-2 with Siniakova serving to stay in the match, so the possibility of a THIRD straight opponent serving at 5-3 in the 3rd vs. the Czech was there for the having. But the Italian got the break to win in 2:41, reaching the Round of 16 at Wimbledon for the first time in six years. Her run would end in the QF vs. Serena Williams, but she was the first Italian to make it as far at Wimbledon since 2009.
But Siniakova wasn't through...
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Siniakova teamed with Barbora Krejcikova to follow up their Roland Garros title run by taking the Wimbledon doubles, becoming the first team to put together the combo since Kim Clijsters & Ai Sugiyama in 2003. Winning the girls doubles crown in 2013, the Czechs became the first pair to win both in their careers.
In the final, Krejcikova & Siniakova defeated Nicole Melichar & Kveta Peschke in a match-up that included two players (Krejcikova and Melichar) born in Brno, Czech Republic. Brno was the hometown of former Wimbledon champ Jana Novotna, and the '18 tournament was the first to take place since her tragic death due to cancer the previous November at age 49. Novotna's life and death were commemorated during the fortnight by the AELTC, but perhaps the most fitting honor came in the doubles competition.
Aside from Krejcikova being born in Brno, she had been coached by Novotna and spoke touchingly of her both before after winning the title. Melichar, a Czech-born U.S. player, not only reached the WD final, but she also *won* the Mixed, teaming with Alexander Peya to claim her first slam title with a win over Victoria Azarenka & Jamie Murray in the final.
Earlier in the doubles, Bethanie Mattek-Sands & Lucie Safarova had teamed for what turned out to be the last time in a major. One year after BMS' knee injury had prevented them from trying to win a fourth straight slam crown, they attempted to complete their Career Doubles Slam (Mattek is also a win at SW19 from a Mixed Doubles Career Slam, which would be Golden since she won the Olympics in '16). Their run ended in the quarterfinals.
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It was Day 3, and a sense of dread (or at least the threat of it) was *still* apparent, five years after "Black Wednesday."
As insects once again swarmed the AELTC grounds on Flying Ant Day, reigning AO champ #2 Caroline Wozniacki fell on the infested Court 1 to Ekaterina Makarova, becoming the sixth Top 8 seed to fall in the tournament's first three days.
Meanwhile, Aga Radwanska flirted with staging a comeback from a set and 5-1 down while trying to force a 3rd set (after having saved 6 MP in the 1st Rd.), saving a MP vs. Lucie Safarova before the Czech staves off a total of seven BP in an 11-minute game to hold and secure the win.
As it turned out, it was Radwanska's final match at Wimbledon, as she'd retire at season's end. It was also Safarova's final SW19 win at the tournament, as she'd retired early in 2019.
Draw notes:
* - 29-year old Julia Georges, after having lost five straight 1st Round matches at Wimbledon, made the All-England Club the site of her first career slam semifinal berth. Her win over Kiki Bertens in the QF made it *two* Germans in the semis of a major for the first time since the 1993 Roland Garros, and for the first time at Wimbledon since Cilly Aussem defeated Hilde Krahwinkel in the final in 1931.
* - one year after following up her RG title run with a QF result at Wimbledon, '14 SW19 girls champ Alona Ostapenko reached the semifinals in her best post-slam win result in a major.
* - with Serena and Sharapova back in the mix, 2018 marked the first time that both Williams sisters, Maria Sharapova and Victoria Azarenka had been in a Wimbledon draw since 2015. The foursome have combined for 37 slam wins in their careers.
* - Sharapova was playing in her first Wimbledon MD since '15, but her 1st Round loss to Vitalia Diatchenko was her worst in fourteen appearances.
The Russian qualifier's 6-7(3)/7-6(3)/6-4 win in 3:08 in the final moments of the day's light gives her her first Wimbledon MD victory, and just her third ever at a slam. Sharapova served for the match at 7-6/5-3. But Diatchenko would never go away, and Sharapova, as has been the case since she returned from suspension, often seemed tight in the big moments and had a hard time not only putting her opponent away, but just keeping hold of an advantage on the scoreboard when she got it. Diatchenko won a 7-3 TB to knot the match. She then saw Sharapova obtain, then give away, a pair of break leads in the 3rd set. Her last came after she'd taken a 4-3 lead, only to drop serve herself moments later. She wouldn't win another game after that, and ultimately double-faulted on MP. Diatchenko hadn't played a slam MD match since 2016, while Maria was 49-3 in the 1st Round of majors alone. Not only that, but Sharapova had a long history of beating up on her fellow Russians inside the lines of the court. She came into the day with a nearly 80% win percentage vs. her countrywomen for her career and had gone 35-4 against them since early 2010, 27-3 since 2011.
* - two players who dominated the Wimbledon discussion in the early years of the decade barely registered a blip in 2018.
Petra Kvitova, a year out from having played at Wimbledon soon after her return from hand surgery, lost in the 1st Round to Aliaksandra Sasnovich, her worst SW19 result since 2009. The Czech lost a love 3rd set to the Belarusian.
Sabine Lisicki, a former finalist (2013) with five QF+ results from 2009-14, followed up her 1st Round loss in '17 with an opening round qualifying exit. A year later, she'd end the decade by falling in the final qualifying round. After winning 19 matches at SW19 from 2011-14 (23 if you include '09), Lisicki won just four in the MD from 2015-19.
* - 2010 Wimbledon finalist (in singles and doubles) Vera Zvonareva, having gotten married and had a baby since her best years of nearly a decade earlier, played in her first Wimbledon MD since 2014 at age 33. After making her way through qualifying, she was Kerber's initial 1st Round opponent/victim during her title run.
* - a year after a tearful three-hour, 10-8 in the 3rd loss to Johanna Konta in the 2nd Round, Donna Vekic rebounded with a renewed fight. She upset U.S. Open champ (#4 seed) Sloane Stephens in the 1st Round, and ultimately made it all the way to her first career slam Round of 16. It was the type of resilient result that would have made Jana Novotna proud.
* - a year after her semifinal run, Konta had been gone from the draw in a flash. But other Brits made some noise.
Katie Boulter notched her first career slam MD win, while Londoner Harriet Dart, two years after losing a 13-11 3rd set TB in the final round of qualifying in '16, made her belated slam debut. Dart lost in the 1st Round, but gave #7 Karolina Pliskova a run for her money, making her work to win 7-6(2)/1-6/6-4. Dart had beaten Pliskova's twin Kristyna in Eastbourne a week earlier. Dart went on reach the Mixed doubles semis with countryman Jay Clarke, upsetting #1 seeds Dabrowski/Pavic along the way.
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Poland's Iga Swiatek became the fourth from her nation to win the Wimbledon girls crown, the first since the Radwanska sisters won twice in three years between 2005-07 (Aga, then Urszula). In her final junior competition, the unseeded (because she'd essentially left the circuit, but was still age eligible to compete) Switaek, 17, opened with a win over #1-seeded Whitney Osuigwe in three sets. She wouldn't lose another set, ending with a 4 & 2 win in the final over Swiss qualifier Leonie Kung.
The player who'd been considered by many to be the favorite, having won the Roehampton tune-up event, was 14-year old Coco Gauff. Soon to be the youngest girls #1 ever, the reigning Roland Garros junior champ was upset in the quarterfinals by Wang Xiyu in three sets (Gauff had a MP in the 2nd). A year later, Gauff would qualify for the women's draw, knock off a legend in the 1st Round and reach the Round of 16 in her Wimbledon debut.
Wang Xiyu was joined by Wang Xinyu in the girls semis, marking the first time two players from China had reached the final four stage in a junior slam.
They also teamed to win the doubles, defeating Osuigwe & Caty McNally (the latter finishing as runner-up in the SW19 GD for a third straight year) to become the first all-Chinese duo to win a girls doubles slam crown.
Diede de Groot won her second straight Wimbledon wheelchair crown, and completed the sweep of the events that had eluded her in 2017.
De Groot defeated countrywoman Aniek Van Koot 3 & 2 in the singles final, the first step toward a year-long run that would see her return to London in '19 as the reigning champ in all *eight* slam disciplines, a first in the sport's history.
The 21-year old Dutch woman has lost out in the Wimbledon doubles final (w/ Van Koot) in '17 to four-time champs Yui Kamiji & Jordanne Whiley. But with the Brit out while pregnant in '18, de Groot took the if-you-can't-beat-'em-join-'em route, teaming up with Kamiji to win a slam title *together* (rather than at the expense of the other, as has been the case in every slam singles event *but* at Wimbledon) for the first time. They defeated Sabine Ellerbrock & Lucy Shuker to take the crown.
For the second straight year, world #2 Kamiji had failed to reach her first Wimbledon singles final after losing a 3rd set TB in the semifinals.
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In the Invitation doubles competition, Kim Clijsters teamed with Rennae Stubbs to defeat defending champions Cara Black & Martina Navratilova (Martina had won the previous *two* years) in a 6-3/6-3 final. It's Clijsters' first title in the competition, while Stubbs had won previously in 2015.
SEEN AT THE AELTC:
Kate Middleton & Meghan Markle...
Emma Watson...
Jessica Biel & Justin Timberlake...
Tom Hiddleston...
Benedict Cumberbatch...
Stella McCartney...
And Sir David Attenborough (w/ requisite binoculars for close examination of the species)...
Wherever Serena Williams walks, she's the biggest story in play. But while Angelique Kerber may speak more softly and carry a comparatively "smaller" stick, but she has *also* developed the walk of a champion -- rediscovered it, really, after a season lost within the enveloping forest that was created by her own success.
Today at Wimbledon, that so-recently-overgrown forest became a newly-enchanted one for the German, who maintained the steady and decisive style of play in the final that she displayed over the course of this fortnight, out-serving and out-playing a Williams who was never able to fully find her form in the face of Kerber's steady but driving game style, which did nothing if not accentuate, exploit and ultimately prey upon the wanting footwork and error-prone performance put forth by Serena in a rare moment on the slam final stage in which she didn't (eventually) bring her best tennis to the battle at hand.
Of course, maybe she would have if given the time. Kerber, though, didn't allow that potential scenario to live long enough to become a reality. She preferred another.
Two seasons ago, everywhere Williams and Kerber went, there was the other. So as both made their way back around, through very different circular journeys, into position to claim another major title at the end of this very upset-heavy and gloriously chaotic fortnight, perhaps we should have seen their return engagement in the final coming all along.
When Kerber was busy claiming her first slam title in Melbourne two and a half years ago, there was Serena on the other side of the net in the final. Williams then countered later in the summer by winning her most recent Wimbledon title with a Ladies final over Kerber. Eighteen months ago, after learning that she was pregnant, Williams won the Australian Open, replacing the German as the reigning champ and dethroning Kerber as the #1 player in the world. Though Serena was ranked #1 for ten total weeks in 2017 following her win in Melbourne, she never played a match while in the position after announcing her impending motherhood. Just over ten months ago, daughter Olympia was born, and Williams once again narrowly escaped what could have been a tragic post-delivery health scare. Over that same period, Kerber, mentally worn down and lacking the sort of belief that had pushed her to her career year in '16, suffered through an unprecedented ranking fall for a year-end #1 last season, dropping from the top spot to outside the Top 20 in the biggest one-year, non-injury/retirement related slip in tour history.
Today, though they were playing for the right to lift the same Venus Rosewater Dish (Serena for an eighth time, Angie for a first), they met with very different personal accomplishments at hand. While a win from Williams would tie her with Margaret Court for the all-time major title record with 24, Kerber was looking to become just the seventh player to be a three-time slam champion this century, the first since 2011, and just the second (w/ Capriati) not named Williams, Sharapova, Henin or Clijsters. After taking down a series of Generation PDQ stars (C.Liu/Osaka/Bencic/Kasatkina/Ostapenko) while losing just one set (to Liu) along the way at the All-England Club, the reinvigorated Kerber was facing a 36-year old living legend, already the oldest Wimbledon women's champion ever when she won the title in 2016, who with a victory would add yet another intriguing layer to her remarkable career story as she'd become the fourth mother (after Court, Goolagong and Clijsters) to win a slam in the Open era.
After Serena's love hold, Kerber served at 5-3 for the match, her third major title, and to become the second player to defeat Serena twice in a slam final (the other was someone named Venus).
Trying to pull off an eleventh hour save that would keep slam #24 in play, Serena worked the rally in the game's second point in her favor and ventured in to the net to put it away, but instead flied her forehand volley to fall behind 30/love. She knelt on her knee in the shadow of the net, head down and quite possibly coming to grips that "it" just wasn't going to come back to her on this day. Or maybe she was actually gathering herself for one final burst. A drop shot and big deep return got the point to 30/30. But a Kerber forehand down the line into the corner off a high bouncing, deep court ball got her her first MP. She'd only need one. Williams' return error ended the 6-3/6-3 match. Kerber was the Wimbledon champion for the first time.
The moment @AngeliqueKerber won #Wimbledon for the first time ??#TakeOnHistory pic.twitter.com/GsySRMNXaq
— Wimbledon (@Wimbledon) July 14, 2018
Kerber fell to knees and onto the ground. She was immediately enveloped not by a foreboding forest, but by a cloud of dust kicked up by her rolling over on her back on the well-worn baseline.
Now knowing how to recognize both the enchanted forest *and* the trees that make it up, the journey of the German, the first from her nation to lift the Venus Rosewater Dish since her idol Steffi Graf in 1996, has come full circle. After learning how to believe in herself and take chances in 2016, her opposite end of the spectrum experience of '17 showed her the importance of taking time off and "taking care of (herself)." Still improving her game and approach two seasons after her career year, six months beyond the 30th birthday that used to signal the *end* of a tennis player's peak years of accomplishment, Kerber now finds herself three-quarters of the way to a Career Slam.
* - "I think without 2017 I would not be here. I learned a lot last year." - Angelique Kerber
* - "To all the moms out there, I was playing for you today. And I tried." - Serena Williams
* - "I knew I had to play my best tennis against Serena. It’s my second chance [in the final]. I’m the next German after Steffi to win, it’s amazing." - Angelique Kerber
For @AngeliqueKerber, the #Wimbledon dream came true...#TakeOnHistory pic.twitter.com/apeVhtWRVv
— Wimbledon (@Wimbledon) July 14, 2018
One year after finally breaking through to win her maiden slam title in Paris, Simona Halep deepened her career legacy with an unexpected title run at Wimbledon.
Having seen her reign as Roland Garros champion end the month before, Halep responded with quite possibly the best string of performances of her career. After downing story-of-the-tournament 15-year old Coco Gauff in the Round of 16, she ran her sets-won streak to eleven (she lost just one during the fortnight) with straights sets wins over Zhang Shuai and, in two consummate back-to-back performances in the closing days of the tournament, Elina Svitolina (1 & 3) and Serena Williams (2 & 2). In the final against Williams, Halep committed just three unforced errors (a low in recorded slam final history) to win for just the second time in eleven meetings with the seven-time SW19 champion. Her win made her the first-ever Romanian champion at Wimbledon.
Williams, playing in her 32nd career slam final, lost in a third slam final (a career worst streak) in the last five majors in her attempt to tie Margaret Court's all-time mark of 24 slam singles titles. Still, a SW19 finalist for the 11th time (and for the second straight year since returning after having a baby), Williams became the oldest singles slam finalist in the Open era at 37 years, 291 days.
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The two previous Ladies champions at SW19 didn't fare nearly as well.
Defending champ Angelique Kerber lost in the 2nd Round to Lauren Davis, with a 13/31 winner/UE ratio failing to keep up with the young Bannerette's 45/50 stats. The German's loss made her the first DC to lose to a lucky loser in slam history, while Davis' 3rd Round result was the best at SW19 by a LL since 1974. She was the first *ever* to advance as far without having had a bye in the 1st Round.
A round earlier, '17 champion Garbine Muguruza (the #26 seed, obscenely low for a player of her caliber who wasn't dealing with any sort of noteworthy injury) had been upset by Brazilian qualifier Beatriz Haddad Maia. The Spaniard had been up a break in the 1st set, but lose her advantage and was then broken for the set. Haddad did it again in the 2nd, winning 6-4/6-4. It was Muguruza's worst Wimbledon result since 2014, and gave her a typically feast-or-female results line for the decade that looks like this: 2r-1r-F-2r-W-2r-1r.
Before Wimbledon was over, Muguruza parted ways with coach Sam Sumyk after a four-year partnership; while less than a week after the conclusion of the fortnight Kerber ended things with her coach, Rainer Schuettler, who'd only come aboard the previous fall after Wim Fissette's stint during the German's resurgent '17 season had ended.
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The '19 Wimbledon hosted the star-making coming out party for 15-year old Coco Gauff.
Having been the youngest player in history to reach the junior #1 spot in 2018, Gauff was given a WC into Ladies qualifying. All she did was knock off the #1 seed (Aliona Bolsova) and win all three matches without dropping a set, becoming the youngest SW19 qualifier ever. In a match-up that seemed created by destiny, Gauff drew one of her idols in the 1st Round: 39-year old Venus Williams.
Not only was Gauff not overwhelmed by her Day 1 moment in the spotlight, she was more than up to the task, downing Williams 6-4/6-4 (at #313, she was the lowest ranked player to ever beat the legend) to hand her her earlier exit at SW19 since her debut in 1997 at age 17. Gauff was the youngest main draw winner since Jennifer Capriati in 1991, and she followed it up by defeating '17 semifinalist Magdalena Rybarikova in straight sets in the 2nd Round, then staged a comeback from 6-3/5-2 and 2 MP down vs. Polona Hercog in the 3rd, securing the 2nd set by winning a 32-shot rally with a swing volley winner, then converting MP in a 3-6/7-6(7)/7-5 win on a point which included two overheads.
Gauff ultimately lost to eventual champ Simona Halep in the Round of 16, but the teenager had already been crowned the sport's newest "It girl."
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While Gauff got her first taste at 15, 33-year old Barbora Strycova, in the middle of attempting to map out her retirement plans, had the time of her life.
A Wimbledon quarterfinalist in 2014, the Czech downed Johanna Konta in the Last 8 to become the oldest first-time slam semifinalist in tour history in her 53rd career slam MD appearance, topping Roberta Vinci's 2015 final run at the U.S. Open. She lost to Serena Williams, but then picked up her first career slam doubles title alongside Hsieh Su-wei (a winner with Peng Shuai in '13) defeating "Sunshine Doubles" winners Mertens/Sabalenka in the QF, #1-seeded Babos/Mladonovic in the semis, and #4 Dabrowski/Xu in the final, completing their title run without having dropped a set in the event.
After Wimbledon, Strycova replaced Mladenovic as the double #1 for the first time in her career.
===============================================
In Mixed doubles, Latisha Chan teamed with Ivan Dodig to win back-to-back slam crowns (w/ RG), defeating Alona Ostapenko & Robert Lindstedt in the final. It was Chan/Dodig's third MX crown in the last five majors.
Ostapenko & Lindstedt reached the final riding a wave of resurgent, fearless winner-producing tennis from the Latvian (who'd lost in the 1st Round of singles), while "bonding" over the 22-year old's habit of occasionally hitting her 42-year partner in the back of the head with her serve.
===============================================
After years of trial, error, flame-outs and blown leads, Elina Svitolina finally had things go her way for a change.
Coming in recovering from injury and having had the worst first half-season of her career since she gained her footing on tour, the Ukrainian was given a gift by the Tennis Gods in the 2nd Round.
Two weeks earlier, #62-ranked Russian Margarita Gasparyan, having assiduously built back her career since returning in the spring of '18 after missing over a year (and most of two) while undergoing three knee surgeries, recorded her biggest career win over Svitolina in a match that was just her third on grass since 2016. After winning a 1st Round match in her first Wimbledon appearance in three years, the Russian once again was facing Svitolina. She quickly took a 5-2 lead on the #8-seed. Svitolina rallied to tie the score at 5-5, but Gasparyan held and broke for 7-5 to claim the opening set. She held a 22-6 edge in winners. The 2nd set saw more of the same, as Svitolina's '19 injury issues, lack of focus and subpar game confidence seemed about to come home to roost yet again. She'd won just two matches since March. At 5-4, Gasparyan came within two points of getting the break of serve to end the match, but Svitolina held firm to knot the score at 5-5. Five minutes later, it was all but over. For the Russian. Serving at 5-5, love/30, she came down awkwardly on her leg and immediately bent over and grabbed her leg. Soon, she was down on the ground, being tended to by trainers (and delivered water by Svitolina) for a severe cramping situation.
Gasparyan tried to finish the set, perhaps hoping things would improve or she'd somehow stumble into winning the 2nd to end the match, since she didn't seem set to go a full three. After dropping serve, then falling down double set point on Svitolina's serve, the Russian pulled the rip cord and got out without suffering any more damage. Gasparyan's retirement came while leading 7-5/5-6 (still with a 42-15 edge in winners, and 82-81 in points).
Two rounds later, Svitolina faced Petra Martic, coming off three consecutive SW19 three-setters and with barely enough left in the tank to complete the match. In the QF, Karolina Muchova -- "fresh" off a marathon 3:17 win over Karolina Pliskova the day before -- was game but exhausted, and Svitolina slipped through against a third physically compromised oppenent to erase her 0-4 career mark in slam QF and become the first Ukrainian to reach a major semifinal.
Against an in-form Simona Halep, Svitolina barely registered yet again... essentially coming up two sets short of handing slam #24 to Serena Williams on a silver platter (aka the Venus Rosewater dish) two days later in a would-be final match-up.
===============================================
Draw notes:
* - the 2019 Wimbledon was a rare major in which the *unseeded* players included the likes of Venus Wililams, Maria Sharapova, Victoria Azarenka, Svetlana Kuznetsova and Sam Stosur, winners of seventeen slam titles from 2000-14
* - four unseeded woman -- Strycova, Muchova, Alison Riske and Zhang Shuai -- reached the QF, the most at Wimbledon since 1997
* - this was the first slam as the new world #1 for Ash Barty, the 2011 SW19 girls champ. The Aussie didn't follow in the recent footsteps of Alona Ostapenko and Naomi Osaka with QF-or-better results in the first major after their maiden crown, but her Round of 16 finish was still her best Wimbledon result to date.
Having just lost the #1 ranking to Barty, Osaka fell in the 1st Round to Yulia Putintseva, her second loss to the Kazakh in a matter of weeks. The 7-6/6-2 win made Putintseva 6-0 in sets vs. Osaka.
* - Maria Sharapova was seeking her first Wimbledon win since 2015, and seemed set to get it in the 1st Round against Pauline Parmentier. The Russian led 6-4/5-3, but wasn't able to serve out the match. A forearm injury -- a common occurrence since her return from suspension -- ultimately did her in, as she won just one more game and retired down 5-0 in the 3rd. Parmentier, who'd infamously joined in on cyber-bullying fellow French Fed Cup teammate Caroline Garcia a few years earlier, moonwalked on the court in celebration and afterward denigrated Sharapova's decision to not play out one final game, snottily saying that it was something that she'd expect from the Russian.
While the loss was Sharapova's second straight in the 1st Round at Wimbledon, four young Russians had won their opening matches. But all (including Gasparyan) fell in the 2nd Round, meaning that the nation had zero players in the 3rd Round of a slam for the first time since the 2000 Roland Garros, breaking a 76-slam streak.
* - Zhang Shuai's QF run had come after having previously been 0-5 in her Wimbledon career. Before the Chinese veteran's first slam QF result in Melbourne in 2016, she'd gone 0-14 in slam MD matches for her career.
* - aside from Konta's QF run, fellow Brit Harriet Dart (as a WC) recorded her first career slam MD singles wins and reached the 3rd Round
* - 2014 finalist Genie Bouchard lost in the 1st Round to Tamara Zidansek in an 8-6 3rd set. Zidansek had been up 6-3 and with a double-break lead in the 2nd set twice, and led 4-1 in the 3rd, but Bouchard battled back to get within two points (up 6-5, 30/15) of the win, only to drop the final three games. Zidansek led 109-107 in total points, as Bouchard (without a win since February) fell to 3-5 at Wimbledon since winning six matches five years earlier en route to her maiden (and only) slam final.
* - Bouchard's 2014 final conqueror Petra Kvitova managed to reach the second week at Wimbledon for the first time in five years, but lost there to Konta, who was coming off a semifinal run at Roland Garros. After posting QF-or-better results in each of the first five years of the 2010's, going from being hailed as the next great Wimbledon champ, Kvitova had none from 2015-19.
* - former #1 and slam finalist Karolina Pliskova (who'd had a chance to reclaim the top spot at this tournament) once again failed to reach the QF at Wimbledon (after eight appearances), the only slam at which she'd failed to advance to the semis. Against fellow Czecch Karolina Muchova, Pliskova twice served for the match at 5-4 and 11-10 in the 3rd set. The set had come within one hold of serve of being the first MD SW19 singles match to play the newly-instituted 7-point TB at 12-12 in the final set (the first ended up being the men's final), but Muchova broke Pliskova to win 13-11 and advance to her first slam QF in her SW19 debut, and just her fourth MD appearance in a slam.
* - the first match to go under the new Court 1 roof was a 1st Round contest between Donna Vekic and Alison Riske, during which the roof was closed due to darkness at 5-5 in the 3rd set.
After Vekic had been heartbroken after losing a three-hour match vs. Konta in a 10-8 3rd set in '17, the rebounded in '18 to upset U.S. Open champ Sloane Stephens en route to her first slam Round of 16. This time around, after having been forced to a 3rd set, the Croat at one point led it 4-1, only to drop three straight games and ten straight points. In a long service game at 4-4, Vekic earned a six-deuce hold (on GP #5, after saving 2 BP) to edge ahead. Riske knotted it at 5-5, then the roof was closed.
After a short warmup period, Riske dominated the conclusion of the match as Vekic had another of her (by now nearly patented) heartrending exits. While Riske had converted just 3 of 17 BP in the match, Vekic DF'd on #18 to fall behind 5-6. Riske then held serve, ending the match with an ace to win 3-6/6-3/7-5 in 2:29.
Riske went on to hand Barty her first loss as world #1 and advanced to her first slam QF, joining the AELTC's "Last Eight Club" and vowing to take advantage of all the perks -- including free tea and access to special member areas -- for the rest of her life. "Now they'll never get rid of me!," Riske happily exclaimed.
* - several former Wimbledon junior achievers had career firsts in 2019. 2018 girls champ Iga Swiatek made her SW19 debut (losing in the 1st Round weeks after reaching the Round of 16 in Paris), while '16 winner Anastasia Potapova posted her first MD win in the event. 2016 runner-up Dayana Yasremska finally made her Wimbledon debut and reached the Round of 16, while '17 girls doubles champ Kaja Juvan recorded her first slam MD victory (and played Serena Williams well in a 2nd Round encounter, taking the 1st set off the 23-time slam champ).
Additionally, first-time semifinalist Svitolina was the '12 girls runner-up and a junior doubles finalist in '10.
===============================================
The long tentacles of 2013's "Black Wednesday" were still around in 2019, as Gasparyan's retirement had come (naturally) on Day 3.
Although a case *could* be made that something had been a bit fishy on Day 2, as well, as former slam winners Sharapova, Muguruza, Stosur *and* Kuznetsova (and former finalist Bouchard, too) all bowed out.
===============================================
Unseeded Daria Snigur, who'd won Roehampton leading into Wimbledon, became the second Ukrainian (K.Bondarenko '04) to win the SW19 girls singles title. Snigur defeated #1 seed Emma Navarro in the SF, then repeated her win over Alexa Noel in the Roehamption in the final match at the All-England Club.
Savannah Broadus & Abigail Forbes became the second all-U.S. duo to win the girls title in four years, after what had previously been a drought that extended back to 1989.
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In the wheelchair final, Aniek Van Koot upset #1-seeded Diede de Groot, who'd just swept the RG titles to become the first player in history to win all four WC singles slams, all eight WC slam competitions, *and* simultaneously be the reigning champion in all slam events. De Groot had a 25-match slam winning streak (14 singles, 11 doubles) and was looking to win her third straight SW19 singles and tenth straight overall slam competition (dating back the 2017 RG doubles).
Van Koot won the 1st set, but de Groot took things to a 3rd. After Van Koot broke for 4-2, de Groot broke back at love. After DF'ing to go down a break again at 5-3, de Groot fired a return winner on BP to get back on serve again a game later. Serving to stay in the match, de Groot fell down love/30, and saved a MP when a mishit caught the baseline mid-rally and went on to hold for 5-5. After a solid hold of serve from Van Koot, de Groot was down love/30 on serve again in game #12. A Van Koot net cord dribbler gave her triple MP. De Groot saved the first, but then DF'd on the second as Van Koot won 6-4/4-6/7-5.
The win made it four straight Dutch champs in the Wimbledon WC singles (w/ Jiske Griffioen in '16), and solidified Van Koot as probably the most underrated WC player of the era. Though she rose to #1 in 2013 after Esther Vergeer's retirement, throughout her career there had always been "someone else." Van Koot won her first of thirteen slam titles (3s/10d) in 2010, but continually played in the shadow of, first, Vergeer, then Yui Kamiji, Griffioen and now de Groot. Yet, at 28, with the SW19 win she's won seven of the eight major titles, joining only de Groot (w/ all 8), Kamiji (7) and Vergeer (who played when there wasn't a Wimbledon singles competition) with such a distinction.
Van Koot & de Groot later teamed to win the doubles, as de Groot won her sixth straight doubles slam title, defeating Marjolein Buis & first-time slam finalist Giulia Capocci for the crown (after having defeated four-time SW19 champs Kamiji & Jordanne Whiley, teaming for the first time in two years as the Brit played her first slam since having a baby, in the opening round). With the win, the duo was a U.S. Open title away from completing a Doubles Grand Slam in 2019.
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After having fallen in the Invitation Doubles final in '18 to Kim Clijsters & Rennae Stubbs, Cara Black & Martina Navratilova were set to have rematch in the '19 final. But after having qualified for the final before round robin play was complete, Clijsters/Stubbs pulled out with an injury. They were substituted in the final by Marion Bartoli & Daniela Hantchova.
Bartoli & Hantuchova (34 & 36... *younger* than the MD women's singles runner-up, and barely older than another semifinalist), dropped the first eight games of the match to Black & Navratilova (40 & 62...Martina played her first Wimbledon 46 years earlier, reaching the women's 3rd Round and junior final at age 16).
But Black/Navratilova seemed to noticeably let up a bit to make things more competitive, and it resulted in Bartoli/Hantuchova finally getting on the board *and* on a bit of a run. They took the 2nd set 6-3 to force a ten-point match TB. Black/Navratilova took a 4-0 lead, but the score tightened to 4-3 as 2013 Ladies champ Bartoli, playing much better as the match wore on, kept the score close while Hantuchova (mostly) watched. Things were knotted at 8-8. But the (more) veteran pair put away two volleys to finish things off, first came Navratilova to reach MP, then Black with a high fade away overhead from the middle of the court, sent between Bartoli and Hantuchova, to secure the 6-0/3-6 [10-8] victory.
It was the second Invitation title won by Black/Navratilova in the last three years, as they'd reached the final three years running. It was Navaratilova's sixth straight, having teamed with Selima Sfar from 2014-16 (going 1-2).
At 62, Navratilova is the oldest winner of any Wimbledon title, in the Invitation competition or otherwise.
===============================================
SEEN AT THE AELTC:
Coco Gauff's parents...
Serena Williams & Andy Murray in Mixed doubles...
The Duchess of Cambridge (Kate Middleton) and the Duchess of Sussex (Meghan Markle, FoS...Friend of Serena)
Oops...
Double buns...
Double buns on doubles duty... pic.twitter.com/gAkll0uHln
— Jimmie48 Photography (@JJlovesTennis) July 6, 2019
„I think the buns might be giving us superpowers…“ #quotemaybe pic.twitter.com/CELxdmcWHS
— Jimmie48 Photography (@JJlovesTennis) July 6, 2019
Beckham...
Serena's diamond-encrusted Nike logo...
Cumberbatch & Hiddleston...
Janelle Monae...
Jodie Whittaker, that's Who...
Martina's message...
Woody Harrelson. Oh, Woody...
can someone check on woody pic.twitter.com/LFunpC0pNj
— Tyler “The Emmy-nominated One” White (@TylerRuinsTV) July 13, 2019
by popular demand: Curb Your Woody pic.twitter.com/scpaX3X8M2
— Tyler “The Emmy-nominated One” White (@TylerRuinsTV) July 13, 2019
And *this*...
===============================================
See Simona. See Simona win. See Simona win Wimbledon? Yes, as a matter of fact. We just did.
On the occasion of the 2019 Wimbledon Ladies final, Simona Halep answered the time honored question that centers around what one does *after* getting what they'd always dreamed of. It's a query that has stumped many before who'd won their first major title, only to be then forced to ask themselves, "Now what?"
But, past self-flagellating appearances aside, there has rarely been a player more eager to battle than Halep.
While many over the past year have seized upon the former #1's "chill year" description of her twelve-month reign as the leading lady of Paris as a sign that she may have lost her edge, was lackadaisical or didn't have the same desire to win major crowns, Halep's results have always countered any such notion. She was a point away from the rare back-to-back Montreal/Cincinnati combo last summer, led Romania to a huge Fed Cup win over the Czechs in February, and has never been anything less than game and/or in-the-mix at nearly every big event she's played in 2019 even if she *didn't* have anything tangible (like a singles title) at hand to unquestionably prove it as recently as two weeks ago. Sometimes she just lost, was beaten (just no longer *by* herself). She accepted it, learned from it, and moved on. It wasn't the end of the world, but it could still be the start of a good thing. That, more than anything, is the mantra that has driven the current version of Simona forward to new experiences, including winning at SW19.
While Halep has never "left" since the spring of last year, what she proved to be in London over the last fortnight *is* something new. With her RG reign behind her, she confirmed at this Wimbledon that the "better Simona" that she and former coach Darren Cahill strived to create has unequivocally emerged from her cocoon, fully formed and brilliant.
Her win over Serena Williams in the today's final, if one only managed to maintain a glancing focus on the proceedings, appeared to come with relative ease. But it was hardly that. At various times, Williams seemed on the verge of emerging in her own right, only to see the Romanian's hard work thwart such momentum from being established by chasing down ball after ball, gliding atop the grass surface from sideline to sideline and then finding room to strike a winner or put Serena into a position where she couldn't keep the rally alive.
Here comes Serena. No. Then *here* she comes. Umm, still no.
Soon, Halep held a dominant edge on the scoreboard, between the lines and in the air. Then the notion dawned, this was *really* going to happen.
Somewhere in the middle of Simona's masterpiece in southwest London, it was almost as if an in-her-prime Justine Henin had been transported through time and into the body of what once was the young Romanian girl (La Petit Swarmette?) who'd idolized the Belgian. Henin, in spite of her size, found ways to tactically frustrate more powerful players, to out-prepare and sometimes even out-will them. She even did it against one Serena Williams, defeating her in three consecutive slam QF in 2007, as well as in their biggest slam match ('03 RG semi) with the same sort of confidence, lack of fear, and utterly crystal-clear clarity and adherence to an agreed upon game plan that Halep showed in her match with Williams today.
By now, Halep was fully in the flow. Up 4-2, she again led love/30 on Serena's serve. Williams fought back to hold a GP, but too many errors reversed the course of the game. She saved Halep's first BP with an ace, her first of the match. But on BP #2, Halep immediately seized control of the rally and then ended it with a backhand winner down the line to take a 5-2 lead. Serving for the title, Halep went up 30/love when Williams' backhand sailed long. She put in a big serve to lead 40/love. It took two attempts, but on her second MP Halep claimed the title when Williams netted a forehand, ending the 6-2/6-2 match after just fifty-six minutes.
The moment @Simona_Halep became Romania's first ever #Wimbledon singles champion ???? pic.twitter.com/bny53dP8AL
— Wimbledon (@Wimbledon) July 13, 2019
In recent years -- since Jana Novotna went from crying on the shoulder of the Duchess of Kent to lifting the Venus Rosewater dish -- has there been a more decidedly *human* slam champion than Halep? Or one who has freely admitted her failings quite so unflinchingly, dealt with them so openly, and then ultimately conquered them while the sports world (and her entire "Si-mo-na!" crazy home nation) watched? Oh, there have been quite a few multi-dimensional figures on the slam-winning stage over the years, but has any been as open and honest a book, warts and all, as the Romanian *and* successfully come back for more after having experienced such highs and lows?
Surely a few are in the conversation (from Halep's opponent today to the aforementioned Bartoli, and even Li Na and Amelie Mauresmo), but you'd really have to spend many hours splitting hairs to put Halep anywhere but *atop* that list.
It's been quite a journey of discovery these last few years. For Halep, as well as for anyone who's been invested in her quest to embrace her favored identity. While Roland Garros allowed her to finally exhale a year ago, Wimbledon now enables her to take another gulp of air. Who really knows what will come next?
The journey isn't over, though. And isn't that grand?
* - "She [Venus Williams] said congratulations. I told her thank you for everything that you did. I wouldn’t be here without you. I always wanted to tell her that." - Coco Gauff
* - QUESTON: What are the moments you see in your future that you are fighting for at this point?
MARIA SHARAPOVA: "I mean, after withdrawing from a match, it's moments of finishing one and just being healthy."
* - "This tournament shows me that I can win over myself, over my emotions, over my character because I am a very emotional player, person. In the past I couldn't really control it. But in these two weeks I could accomplish something that I worked so many years with my mental coaches." - Barbora Strycova
* - "If you start to think about, okay, it's the first time semifinal, like, Stop it. Stop it. Let's think what I'm going to have for dinner." - Elina Svitolina
* - "It was my mum's dream for me. she said if I wanted to do something in tennis I have to play the final of Wimbledon, so today the day came." - Simona Halep
* - "Never!" - Simona Halep, when asked after the final if she'd ever played better
posted by Todd.Spiker @ 1:25 AM
6 Comments:
Kind of think that Bartoli, Bouchard, and Vondrousova should be out. Bartoli only has 3 1/2 seasons of work, Vondrousova has less, and Bouchard had one great year, and mostly fair to middling ones after.
Shvedova holds up well against that group, and think Ivanovic and Jankovic should have stayed.
Also agree on Sharapova being #10. Even with the weak results the second half of the decade, there isn't anybody else to put there.
I disagree, in that I would have placed Sharapova a bit higher.
Oh, they will be. But I didn't want to eliminate most slam winners until as late as possible, and most active players (like MV) capable of something big I've still got listed "just in case." Truthfully, I wondered if I should have kept Muchova until after the U.S. Open, just for that reason. I was going to go ahead and eliminate Bouchard, but she had that one great year and, who knows, maybe a miracle happens in NY and she'd then have enough to at least be considered for around the #25 spot, no matter how difficult it would be.
Anyway, I've just tried to not eliminate most on the list until it's obvious that it's time. 69 now. 35-40 after the Open. Then then final 10-15 cuts before I start with the #21-25 positions with very little time left in the season to make a difference for anyone positioned down there.
Yeah, I went ahead and cut the cord on the Serbs, though I did think about JJ. Then I looked at her numbers, and she only won four titles in the decade (3 Int'l, and the big one was all the way back in '10), and had only a two QF+ in majors (SF in '10, QF in '13). She *does* have quite a few big finals (4 high Premier RU), and I guess it's possible she gets reinstated when I really start to cut down to 25 if I run out of legit people at around 22-23. But I'm thinking *probably* not.
Same with Ivanovic. In comparison, AnaIvo only has one big final, and was such a disappointment in the slams. Her '14 season was good, but it was really an aberration.
Plus, once you start counting all the slam winners, doubles players *and* (this time) WC players, too, I think it'll get crowded pretty fast.
Haha! I was trying to think up which player you'd pick for your #10 spot, and figured it might be someone I didn't even list as a nominee. ;)
(For the record, I put my money on someone like Cibulkova, who was *just outside* my contenders list.)
D-
Yeah, I think the 0-fer for the last four years (and being w/o a title) caused me to pull her back. Of course, if Halep hadn't won Sharapova would have been up one spot just for that. Bartoli's title run (and that she was one of only two winners who didn't lose a set) was hard to not at least have at #9.
I see your point. And Bartoli's no-sets-loss run definitely gives her a boost.
That Sharapova never won Wimbledon again remains one of the great tennis mysteries of recent times. There was a lot of injury involved, I know, but it still seems strange.
*Fifteen* years ago. How has it possibly been that long?
Although, really, grass was never her best surface (especially after the shoulder impacted her serve), it was likely hard courts. Then, later, clay.
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