QUICK SERVED: WIMBLEDON DAY 5 RECAP - COCO CRUISES, RADUCANU DOMINATES, TIAFOE STRONG IN LOSS
Jul 05, 2024
Served with Andy Roddick
Why were there tears behind court 14 at Wimbledon, even in the rain? Andy Murray’s emotional farewell, Emma Raducanu's victory over Maria Sakkari, Carlos Alcaraz narrowly avoiding an upset against Frances Tiafoe, Jannik Sinner's battle with Miomir Kecmanovic, and Emma Navarro's win over Diana Shnaider.
Why were there tears behind court 14 at Wimbledon, even in the rain? Andy Murray’s emotional farewell, Emma Raducanu's victory over Maria Sakkari, Carlos Alcaraz narrowly avoiding an upset against Frances Tiafoe, Jannik Sinner's battle with Miomir Kecmanovic, and Emma Navarro's win over Diana Shnaider.
Hey everyone, john Wertheim, here. It is Quick Serve, presented by Oslo Sleep Buds. I'm John Wertheim, behind court 14. As you can see by these airbags behind me covering the court, these inflatable tarps, it's been a rainy day, but that's okay. We'll be checking in throughout the event with quick hits, highlight the top moments, upset storylines. We'll track it all the way through. This is Friday.
Speaker 1:
Still a bit of a I'm not sure what the word is not quite a hangover, maybe an afterglow, from last night's ceremony toasting Andy Murray on his career. Always a bit awkward when the person is young and financially secure and relatively healthy. It doesn't sort of quite chime like a funeral, but it was a send-off for Andy Murray. I wish I had Andy Roddick here to dive in. It just still strikes me that this guy, who existed at the same time in the shadow of these three great mountains in Adolf, federer and Djokovic, still managed to stir such emotions and put together such a legacy. He will be missed. He's still kind of sort of in the tournament and kind of sort of on the schedule for the Olympics. So it's not necessarily a retirement, but that ceremony last night still echoed today. There was, however, a lot of tennis and it was probably fitting that the day after we toasted, andy Murray, a Brit really stole the show. That the day after we toasted Andy Murray, a Brit really stole the show. That was Emma Ratakanu, who played center court and was just terrific, just an outstanding, composed performance beating Maria Sakharina. It sort of reminds us of what a strange career it's been for Emma Ratakanu, but also how stellar a player she can be when she is on. She, of course, won the US Open as a qualifier, one of the stranger major breakthroughs in recent memory. That was three years ago. Since then it's been a lot of injury and some defeats and some decisions not to play, and then she comes back in these last few weeks and looks like a player capable of winning more majors and she was completely on it today. Odd bit of symmetry when she won that US Open three years ago, maria Sokari was the highest ranked player she had to beat, I believe, and she surrendered five games. Today, against Maria Zachary, she surrendered five games. So on to week two goes Emma Raducanu, with really just sort of a composed, business-like, mentally dialed-in performance. Very impressive.
Speaker 1:
Speaking of impressive 21-year-olds, carlos Alcaraz, the defending champion, he started on center court today, opened up against Francis Tieto. Let us go back to the US Open of 2022, when those two played too young, ascending electric stars, big personalities. Their match goes five sets. Since then, careers have diverged. Francis actually came into this match today, came into Wimbledon with a losing record for the year. As he himself said, he's lost to a lot of clowns. He lost today it was not to a clown, it was to Carlos Alcarez who, of course, since that US Open match, he'd go on to win that tournament, win another major, another major after that, and today was, a lot of ways, had echoes of that match two years ago.
Speaker 1:
A lot of fun shot making for, I'd say, the first three hours. Francis was a superior player, took a two set to one lead, looked like we had a real upset brewing. This would have been really a transcendent moment for Francis Tiafoe, especially given the way his year has gone. If he comes to center court and takes out the defending champion, that is a big, big win, perhaps the biggest of his career. Fourth set goes to a tie break and you had a real sense whoever won the tie break would win the match. Either Francis would close it out and seal this thing or Carlos Alcaraz would steal the tie break, steal the set and go on to win the match. And that's exactly what happened to option two. Carlos won the tie break 7-2, and by then you really sensed this deflation. Carlos ran out the fifth set, 6-2. So what could have been a very dangerous situation for Carlos Alcaraz ended up being triumphant. As we record this, spain is winning the Euros, so it turns out to be a very good day for Carlos Alcaraz, but he advances just barely these levels of the game. As John McPhee wrote, this was just one of these moments where you just had a sense that the player who was more put together was going to be able to take the match, even on a day when he didn't have his best stuff. So a good effort from Francis TFO, but a lot of disappointment, and Carlos Alcaraz has to be very happy that he ends up surviving the top player in his half of the draw.
Speaker 1:
Yannick Sinner is taking court right now against Miamir Kacimanovic, who wants to be a Miamir. He has never lost to Kacimanovic. Sinner, hasn't Kacimanovic, actually? I just saw this. 136 and 136, a career 500 record. Don't often see that. We expect that he will be sub 500 in a few hours, as we are working on the assumption that the Yannick Sinner goes through. It's always dangerous to assume in tennis, but we are outlaws and if somehow Miamir Kacmanovic springs the upset, we'll either do an emergency ad through the magic of editing or we will do our penance tomorrow.
Speaker 1:
Other matches from today there were a couple of matches where just they simply could have gone. Either way. Who wants it more? We had Emma Navarro. Good day for the Emmas.
Speaker 1:
Emma Navarro was on court 18 against Deanna Schneider. They played a few weeks ago. Schneider won that match. They are a doubles team and they get to four all in the third set. And it's again simply who's got it together? And today it was Emma Navarro who just strikes me as such a pro's pro. She is just starting her career. She is, you know, less than two years removed from college tennis and she just is this consummate professional already. She is in great shape Mentally. She's a tough player. There is no sort of wasted movement in her game and also no wasted movement in the way she conducts herself, just all business. And it showed today Four all in the third set. She just basically sees the match and won six4 in the third. Um, not dissimilarly, uh. We had paula bedosa and daria kazatkina, friends, two of the more popular players. They too were just one of these who wants it more battles deep in the third set. This time, uh, it was paula bedosa really again, just kind of seizing this victory to move on, uh, other matches.
Speaker 1:
Coco goff did not have much problem for the third straight match. She played British wildcard and quitted herself very well. All credit to her opponent, kartal, a player outside the top 200. People did not know a lot about her and they got a real glimpse today of a player who played with some self-belief, whose clear game plan was to just try and redline and hit as hard as she could on every shot. Sometimes she did, sometimes she did not. She ended up losing 6-4, 6-0 to Coco but gave a really nice performance and Coco as well. Just sort of could have been tricky playing a British player on center court. Just sort of a very veteran, solid, clinical performance as Coco moves on.
Speaker 1:
We talked a few days ago about Lulu Sun. The strange mashup of Switzerland and New Zealand Don't often come across that she won yet another match. Again, this is a former college player at Texas. Once again, the impact of college tennis is very much expressed on both the men's and women's draws. Here. Lulu Sun advances again. The rain came and that will push a lot of the matches back. We're going to have a busy Saturday here. If you're scoring at home, that is five straight days where we had rain Not a total shock given that we are in the UK, but we could use a day of sunshine for the schedule to catch up. We said we were going to do a random note of the day every day. Here's today's to catch up. We said we were going to do a random note of the day every day. Here's today's.
Speaker 1:
It is absolutely forbidden, verboten to show the Euros, the European soccer competition, on the big screens and monitors here. So big game for the UK tomorrow. England play Switzerland in the Euros Some crazy. You know two-thirds of the TVs in this country will be tuned to the soccer match. Presumably the other third will be tuned to tennis. But there are strict rules here on the ground. You are not to show the euro. So if you come to Wimbledon expecting to watch soccer on the big screens, you will be disappointed. Otherwise, the schedule for tomorrow just came out.
Speaker 1:
We have Alexander Zverev taking on Cam Norrie on center court. Norrie fresh off that win over young Jack jack draper. We have osger burr against alina svitolina and then jokovic, after a bit of a scare in the second round, takes on alexi popper in australia. They've already played once this year at the australian oak and drop in jokovic one down in four sets. We'll see if he can get it done on court one. We have ben shelton, who survived two, five setters and was also hit the fastest serve of this tournament. He's playing Dennis Shapovalov, iga Shvantec, the number one seed on the women's side, against Putin, seva Rabakina against Wozniacki in an offense-defense matchup. My guy, my new favorite player, giovanni Pecci-Perrycard, the 20-year-old 6'8 Frenchman, is in action. So is Yelena Ostapenko. Luca Pui plays Alex Dimonor, daniel Collins producer, mike's favorite player, taylor Fritz.
Speaker 1:
Big day tomorrow, and a lot of that again is owing to this bad weather we are having, but for today no big upsets. Carlos Alcaraz gets a scare but survives against Francis Tiafoe, emma Raducanu sort of steals the show and hopefully that yellow orb we know is the sun comes out tomorrow. Lulu's son is the victor. The actual son was missing in action today. Hopefully that changes tomorrow. I'm John Wertheim. This was Quick Serve presented by Oslo Sleep Buds. Enjoy Middle Weekend.
