QUICK SERVED: WIMBLEDON DAY 6 RECAP - IGA EXITS, SHELTON FIGHTS ON, and RADUCANU DROPS MIXED-DOUBLES
Jul 06, 2024Season 1
Served with Andy Roddick
As we start to wrap up week one here at Wimbledon 2024, Iga Swiatek is defeated by Putinseva in the third round. Novak Djokovic and Ben Shelton advance into the 4th round. Emma Raducanu pulls from her scheduled Mixed-Doubles matches with Andy Murray to preserve herself in hopes to continue her singles-run; this brought a polarizing response from fans and media.
As we start to wrap up week one here at Wimbledon 2024, Iga Swiatek is defeated by Putinseva in the third round. Novak Djokovic and Ben Shelton advance into the 4th round. Emma Raducanu pulls from her scheduled Mixed-Doubles matches with Andy Murray to preserve herself in hopes to continue her singles-run; this brought a polarizing response from fans and media.
Hey everyone, john Wertheim here. It is today's version of Quick Serve, presented by Oslo Sleep Buds. This is our daily monologue, our daily podcast, wrapping up action from Wimbledon 2024. John Wertheim, behind court 14, here we check in daily with quick hits highlighting the top moments, storylines, upsets, factoids, and on the sixth day, are you sitting down? It rained a little bit, which caused some chaos to the schedule. We jest it has been six days of rain here, but the sun did come out and all in all, this was an outstanding day of tennis A lot of fun, a lot of surprising results, a lot of late matches. We're still I'm recording this about 8.30 local and there is still tennis going on on most of the courts, including the big ones, which will probably go into the night.
Speaker 1:
The big story today, the one that generated its own New York Times text alert Iga Svantek goes down in the third round to Yulia Putin's Seva. We've talked before, including on this podcast many times about how Iga has not performed on grass nearly commensurate with her results on other surfaces, clay in particular. It is a bit funny because she is a former junior champion here, but it hasn't happened for her at Wimbledon. And now another year of disappointment, she goes down on the third round to Putintseva. I would say the result is a mild upset. Putin Seva not much of a grass track record herself, at least before this year. But she's a battler, feisty player. She can give top players difficulty. Beat Naomi Osaka here once. I would say the real upset is the storyline and the scoreline. Eagle won the first set 6-3 and then absolutely vanished. She lost the second set 6-1, a reverse breadstick of sorts. She left the court and that seemed to actually energize Putin's Seva, who later said she sort of got bored and she was asking about the rules. She was clearly annoyed by that and then she came out firing in the third set as well, won five of the next six games, ended up closing out the match 6-2. So I would say Iga Svantec losing middle Saturday at Wimbledon surprise, but not gobsmacking. The fact that she would lose the last two sets without apparent injury 6-1, 6-2, that ought to be concerning and it sort of reveals this inconvenient truth. This is an absolutely dominant player. She could retire tomorrow and be a legend, a Hall of Famer, and yet she has only won one of the last five majors and hasn't been beyond the quarterfinals here at this pinnacle event. Solving this grass court riddle will be one of the enduring storylines of the rest of her career. Can she or can she not do it?
Speaker 1:
Other results as we speak Novak Djokovokovic, seven-time champ, wearing a knee sleeve that looks like medieval armor. Uh lost the first set against alexei popperin but has won the latter two. We are working on the assumption novak will pull through. The seven-time champ will stay alive. If that changes, we'll have to uh get scolded or edit this, but it looks like Novak. We've seen this movie before. Uh, novak looks okay. Looks like he'll get through.
Speaker 1:
Other results Ben Shelton, 21 year old Floridian, won his third straight five setter. This was a player who was a few games from being eliminated in the first round, which would have been a real disappointment. He recovered, won that match and now has won two more in uh in five sets today, lefty, lefty. He beats Denis Shapovalov, a semifinalist here three years ago, but someone whose game has fallen off a bit, and credit Shelton for just sort of taking the moment and meeting its gaze. And he is now into the fourth round for the first time. His reward for this feat he gets a step up in opposition. Now he plays top seed Yannick Sinner, which will be a big match on Monday, but overall, perhaps a winnable match. Shelton still giving players fits with his power, with his loose arm, with his leftiness, with his unpredictability, ben Shelton advances. Other results Lena Svitolina, semifinalist here Last year, beating last year's finalist, anz Jabir, who looks like she could really use a break from tennis.
Speaker 1:
I was A few days ago when she was saying how childbirth really changed her, not just in terms of personality, not just in terms of rhythm, but it really had her re-sync tennis and it changed her mentality, the way she plays. She's gotten much more aggressive, much more offensive. Her risk threshold has changed and this is a new player. This is a player unrecognizable from the player who was in the top five before giving birth and she played her best today. Just a nice solid, athletic, offensive battle against jabir um served it out and now she advances. Other results uh, daniel collins was losing 04 to the brazilian bear, dad maya. Then the rains came and dan and Daniel Collins reeled off nine straight games. That match is still ongoing, but we will work on the assumption Daniel Collins will be okay there.
Speaker 1:
Daniil Medvedev another quiet win, this one over Jean-Lenard Struff, sporting the peroxide hair, as so many players are Other matches. Our man, giovanni Pecci-Paricar, the 20-year six foot eight inch frenchman, only hit 27 aces, only won 37 points at the net. He advanced beating the fin emile rusevori. Uh, this, this perry card, is a great story. The tournament lucky loser lost in qualifying, stuck around, got in and now is in the fourth round.
Speaker 1:
Plays, plays Lorenzo Muzzetti, who just won about a minute ago, right behind me, a real shot for Perry Card at the quarterfinals. He'll end this tournament inside the top 50. So his days of having to qualify and getting into the lucky loser are behind him. He himself admits he's been a delight to talk to. Just sort of a fun kid, as awed by this as anyone and sort of said look, I'm very much still learning to play tennis. He has a one handed backhand, he serves in volleys, he sort of has a body that could use this is not necessarily a toned athlete and he's sort of as bemused and amused as anyone. He also noted he turns 21 on Monday and the best he would like to reward himself with a brownie if he wins that fourth round match. I would say he's earned it.
Speaker 1:
The big news off the court about a week ago Andy Murray asked Emma Ratakanu if she would play mixed doubles and she said at the end of my life I'm going to have that memory of playing at Wimbledon with Andy Murray on our home slam or not, because today Amirata Kanu announced that she had had some wrist pain in the night and would not be playing mixed doubles with Andy Murray at Wimbledon in his last slam. The upshot of this is that Andy Murray's Wimbledon career is effectively over. This announcement did not go over so well in many quarters, not least from Judy Murray, who was clearly upset. On social media she wrote that she was astonished by this announcement. I talked to a number of former players and they essentially said it was disrespectful or that look, she knew what she was getting when she was signing up, for Somebody made an excellent point that Andy Murray had no ambitions of winning a mixed doubles title, that this was just sort of a tribute.
Speaker 1:
This was one last match on the grass to savor this event as long as possible. He's in no position to play because of his back, so Emma Raducanu did not have to worry. She was going to have to play, day in, day out, mixed doubles. This was sort of a one-time affair. Emma Raducana, of course, is still in the singles, which is what impacted this decision. In fairness, there were other players who said look, you do what you have to do. This is mixed doubles. Why would you ever jeopardize your? I mean, she could legitimately win this tournament. The number one seed is out. She's playing great. She beat a top 10 seed. Why would she in any way jeopardize her chances of winning a singles title over mixed doubles? She needs to protect herself. So this did seem to cleave the tennis public, but overall it did not go over great.
Speaker 1:
It did recall a little sidebar for story time. It was 25 years ago that John McEnroe thought he could win the mixed title. He asked Effie Graff to be his partner. She said yes and then, as she advanced in singles, she would end up reaching the final that year. As she advanced, she bailed on the partnership and basically pulled out of the mix. John McEnroe was furious, as John McEnroe can tend to be. He went into the locker room. He was spouting profanities and invectives, and the two people in the locker room with him were Andre Agassi and Andre's coach at the time, brad Gilbert. Mcenroe did not realize at the time no one did, in fact that Andre Agassi in fact was dating Steffi Graf, and this player that McEnroe was disparaging would end up being Andre Agassi's spouse. But today's moment recalled that.
Speaker 1:
And just as McEnroe did not get to play doubles mixed doubles with Steffi Graf, we will not have an Andy Murray Emma Ratakanu partnership. We said we do a factoid every day. How about this one? Emma Navarro plays Coco Gauff tomorrow, a much-anticipated match. We know a bit about Ben Navarro, emma's father, but did you know that Frank Navarro, emma's grandfather, was an esteemed college football coach, head coach at Columbia and Princeton, among other schools?
Speaker 1:
On a sad note, we woke up to the news today that Vic Satius, who was this leading light of American tennis and really had this rich life of military man, he passed away at age 100. This is someone who was a tennis pro. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in the early 70s, which means that he spent more than half his life as a Hall of Famer. He won the Grand Slam and mixed doubles, two singles, major titles. This was someone who, at age 80, he was a club pro in the Bay Area and then he was physically prevented from teaching tennis so he became a bartender at the club. He passed away at the age of 100. Frank Sedgman, 96, is now the oldest living tennis Hall of Famer.
Speaker 1:
On a happier note, the schedule just came out for tomorrow. Let's take a look at the order of play, shall we? We have a number of Sunday matches because of the holdovers. Carlos Alcaraz kicks off center court against Hugo Umber, who just finished his match today over Brandon Nakashima. Emera Nakano is playing Lulu Sun, second on center. Third, this Navarro-Koko Goff match. A big match for both of them. Two Americans in the top 20 on court. One Jasmine Paolini, the French Open finalist, plays Madison Keyes. Yannick Sinner will play against Shelton and Grigor Dimitrov will play Medvedev. That will do it for us today. Again. This is Quick Serve presented by Oslo Sleep Buds. I'm John Wertheim behind court 14. Andy will be joining us soon, you will be happy to know, but that will do it for today, our first Middle Sunday this year, only the third, since Middle Sunday became a thing two years in 2022. So we will have Sunday tennis here for only the third time. We will be here to recap it. All right, have a good day everyone.
