Australian produced his best in the first set of the Wimbledon men’s final but was ground down by an inscrutable opponentNick, you will be back. Hmm. Will he, though? There was the sense of a slightly awkward set of wedding speeches about the ceremonials at the end of this men’s Wimbledon singles final, a four-set victory for Novak Djokovic that seemed, for all the quality of the tennis, to be oddly inevitable from about 50 minutes in.This was, of course, a Djokovic story once again but then men’s tennis has basically been a Djokovic story for the last 10 years. Here the lineal world No 1 was utterly clinical, his levels vertiginously high, riding out a sublime first set when...
Russian-born champion was able to compete at Wimbledon thanks to her switch of national allegiance in 2018It took one hour, 48 minutes for history to be made at Wimbledon yesterday on Saturday as Elena Rybakina became the first player from Kazakhstan to win a grand slam singles title. Nervous initially, her 3-6, 6-2, 6-2 victory over Ons Jabeur means her name will be forever associated with Wimbledon.Rybakina went into the final as the underdog and many people expected it to be Jabeur to be the history-maker. The first Arab player to make a grand slam singles final and the first African to reach a singles final in the Open era, Jabeur led by a set but could not maintain her...
The Australian leads the head-to-head 2-0 but his record against top 10 players in best-of-five-set matches is alarmingIt has been seven long years since a 19-year-old Nick Kyrgios reached the second of his two career grand slam quarter-finals up to that point. Between his big wins over big players and the controversy he courts everywhere he goes, his public profile has only grown in the years since but his notoriety did not correlate with greater success on the court.This year, though, the Australian has turned a corner. He arrived at Wimbledon playing the best, most consistent tennis of his career and has used it to blaze a trail into his first grand slam final. Continue reading...
Rafael Nadal’s withdrawal through injury is sad for him and us, but even Taylor Fritz agrees there is no place for ‘handouts’When Rafael Nadal announced on Thursday evening he would not be able to play Friday’s semi-final against Nick Kyrgios because of injury, it prompted a variety of feelings, from sadness for Nadal himself to disappointment that Wimbledon fans will be denied a great showpiece semi-final.Nadal’s withdrawal because of an abdominal tear means Kyrgios gets a free pass through to his first grand slam singles final, giving him an extra couple of days of recovery before he plays either the six-time champion Novak Djokovic or Britain’s Cameron Norrie for the title. Continue reading...
What is the plan, the protocol, the policy when allegations about athletes are aired? The ATP is one governing body that must do betterSo much for the good times. The show will go on for Nick Kyrgios at Wimbledon, starting on Wednesday with a quarter-final against Cristian Garin, the first of three hypothetical steps towards a long-shot first grand slam title win. But for now the party, the bunting, the King Nick buzz, is over.Sport loves to spin these stories. Over the past 10 days Kyrgios had seemed to be turning into one of the English summer’s chief objects of fascination, a brilliant, charismatic tennis player; albeit a brilliant, charismatic tennis player with some obvious deference issues, clothing issues, politeness...