From Daniil Medvedev's hilarious tiebreaker confusion to Coco Gauff's impressive performance, Naomi Osaka goes in three straight sets, plus Fabio Fognini's entertaining bet-inspired transformation at 37.
From Daniil Medvedev's hilarious tiebreaker confusion to Coco Gauff's impressive performance, Naomi Osaka goes in three straight sets, plus Fabio Fognini's entertaining bet-inspired transformation at 37.
Hey everyone, john Wertheim here, welcome to Quick Serve, our compressed daily rundown of all the action from Wimbledon. This is day three. I'm behind court 14. If you hear cheering, don't blame me. Blame the fans who are here watching Diana Yastrzemska and Barbara Grotcheva, who are at five, all in the third set. That is Gracheva, who are at 5-0 on the third set. That is why these fans are so loud right behind me on Court 14. See, we're bringing you real Wimbledon authenticity. But day three was another kind of sort of rainy gray day, but we got through most of the matches anyway.
Speaker 1:
A theme of comeback chimed through the air today Comebacks in careers, comebacks in matches themselves, and come back and do it again tomorrow because the weather has prevented some matches from going on court. But let's start at the top Center. Court began with Daniil Medvedev, who had to come back from losing the first set 7-6, 6-3 in the tiebreaker. What do I mean by that? Youtube is your friend At 6-3 in the tiebreaker. What do I mean by that? Youtube is your friend At 6-3 in the breaker. Daniil Medvedev thought he had lost the set. He had forgotten momentarily he needed to win or lose seven points to close off a tiebreaker. He had a good laugh about that. Later he lost the tiebreaker but ended up winning the match over Alexander Muller His camp, to their great credit. Even in the even in that first set was giggling about Daniil's gaffe, but he recovered and won. The match moves on and, as usual with him, we all had a good laugh.
Speaker 1:
Carlos Alcaraz comes back as well, comes back to the scene of the crime. He won his major here last year. The champion won his ninth straight match at the All-England Club, also his ninth straight match in majors since he won Roland Garros last month. He played a game opponent in Alexander Bukic, the Australian sort of game, but unthreatening, and Carlos Alvarez prevails. Other comebacks Coco Gaft had a comeback, not really, but last year she lost in the first round. She has come back very well this year and was barely giving up games Only three of them today. Awesome again and she really looks very strong on that bottom half of the draw. Other comebacks let's see what we got here.
Speaker 1:
Naomi Osaka is coming back from motherhood, four-time major champion. She is trying to get back to where she once belonged. She looked very good in paris in uh. In the second round she came within a point of defeating the eventual champion shvantec here. Not so much bit of a step back, honestly, for uh players still trying to get some traction, get her footing. She was completely outclassed, really surprised, uh, by emma navarro on center court, not so so much the result. Navarro, the seated player, very solid making her way up the ranks. All credit to her. But Naomi Osaka just did not have it today. Straight set defeat in under an hour. Emma Navarro, only five unforced errors. A player not known for her serve. Emma Navarro did not even face a break point. Just a really solid outing for one player and really, I think, a rare consensus in tennis. I think we all agree tennis is better when Naomi Osaka is all cylinders firing. She has talked herself about giving her some grace and some time and really peaking for the US hard courts. That's what comes next. But she leaves here. A second round straight set defeat is not what she was going for. Let's keep our comeback theme.
Speaker 1:
Fabio Fonini, trying to come back both at age 37 and from losing a bet. He had to bleach his hair, so with frosted tips that he likened alternately, he came to Tennis Channel we had. We had a good laugh about it. He explained the bet and how he got that one past his wife, who just happens to be 2015 US Open winner, flavia Panetta. He said it was sort of a half Bart Simpson, half Billy Idol, look. But it served him well. He looked good, he played well. Beat Kasper Ruud for the first time in four meetings Kasper Ruud seeded but, as we all know, nobody's grass court favorite and Kasper didn't have it today. Fabio Finini did. He advanced Another comeback.
Speaker 1:
How about Tommy? Paul, andy and I, a couple of weeks ago, really are expressing our admiration for him. This is somebody who has really evolved and cleaned up his game and added this level of professionalism and showed it today. He was down two sets to one to qualifier Otto Vitranen of Finland. Tommy ended up winning the fourth set. Winning the fifth set. Pulling that one out Quick note about Vitranen of Finland. And Tommy ended up winning the fourth set. Winning the fifth set. Pulling that one out. Quick note about Vitranen. Just a sidebar.
Speaker 1:
Otto Virtanen, 23 years old, plays the qualifying here. He's down four match points in his first round match of qualifying. Ends up surviving. Second round Again, he faces four match points. These were on his opponent's serve, no less. Survive those. He ends up qualifying for the main draw in the interim. His grandfather in Finland passes away. So Otto Vertunen qualifies for Wimbledon but goes home last weekend to essentially be a pallbearer at his grandfather's funeral.
Speaker 1:
Comes back, wins his first round over Max Purcell, a very nice Australian player. That's a really good win. And then Otto Virden comes back two sets to one against Tommy Paul, a seed winner of Queen's Club. This would have been really a particularly, you know, a potentially transforming match for Otto. Up two sets to one. Can't quite pull it off, but again a great story for him. And again one of these sort of great week one stories that risks falling between the cracks. But uh, you need a player to root for. Otto Virtunen should be high on your list. Very nice player, nearly scored the upset, but Tommy Paul prevails.
Speaker 1:
Uh, other matches, other comebacks. Bianca Andreescu trying to come back and get back to where she was in her magical year of 2019, and she looked very good today. Beat, uh, beat Linda Noskova of the Czech Republic. Now she is going to play Jasmine Paolini in the next round. Those two played at Roland Garros, so chance for some revenge for Andreescu. But always a pleasure to talk to her. She visited with us at Tennis Channel. Seems to be in a good place spiritually, mentally, physically, and as she tries to come back and reestablish her dominance from 2019, she had a nice win today.
Speaker 1:
Other results just sort of go through the run as we speak. Now, yannick Sinner looks like he's going to do just fine against his countryman, matteo Berrettini. Potentially tough match, but first two sets to Sinner and if we have to re-record this because of the miraculous Berrettini comeback, we will come back ourselves play tomorrow because their matches didn't get going. That includes Ben Shelton, madison Keyes, daria Kazakina, who, suddenly the Birmingham winner, is suddenly looking like a real player to watch in this event. But we will come back on Thursday for day four.
Speaker 1:
Loaded schedule Iga Shvantec in action, novak Djokovic in action. Today again a lot of sort of fun stories. No seismic results, no holy cows. Emma Raducanu was another winner. Good days for the Evas. Both Navarra and Raducanu. Both look very strong.
Speaker 1:
Nothing crazy, but you know, at these majors a lot of times sort of calm week ones portend strong week twos, and we all love upsets and we all love convulsive, concussive draws. But that doesn't tend to lend itself necessarily to the best matches in week two, and we all love upsets and we all love convulsive, concussive draws, but that doesn't tend to lend itself necessarily to the best matches in week two. So we'll take a day like today, any day of the week, if it doesn't rain tomorrow, if we can get through a session without the tarps, that would be a win. I'm john worth. I'm thanks for listening. We will come back again tomorrow. This was quick serve presented by oslo sleep buds.
Speaker 1:
This was Day 3 from Wimbledon Championships. If you are wondering why you did not hear raucous crowd noise as predicted, it's because the match behind us on 4-4-T it's still going on. Yastrzemska and Gracheva are now at 6-all in a final set tiebreaker. So if we stayed about five minutes more, you would probably hear rousing applause from a winner and a dejected loser, but this match is still going on. Sort of a theme for the day trying to beat darkness. That'll do it for today. That's Wednesday. We'll be back Thursday. Andy will still be on vacation. One of these days we'll get the Hall of Famer to join us again, but I'll hold down the fort until then. Have a good holiday weekend everyone. Enjoy the tennis, enjoy July 4th and we'll do it again tomorrow.
