Australian remains box office but he let his tennis do the talking in a controlled fourth-round victory on Centre CourtJust when you think you know someone, that’s when they go and let you down. On a balmy afternoon in front of a fond, even – whisper it – quietly adoring Centre Court crowd, Nick Kyrgios confirmed his own mercurial nature, his basic inconsistency by remaining controlled, rigidly polite and an all-round model pro and steady guy throughout this fourth-round win against Brandon Nakashima.In victory Kyrgios was gushingly courteous towards his 20-year-old opponent. He paid tribute to his girlfriend (“the best girlfriend in the world”), referenced his many friends in tennis and namechecked his many excellent conversations with “Andy”. He even...
The BBC must be thrilled when the motors overhead start whirring but the tournament has become a late event by stealthWe have learned a lot about Wimbledon in this centenary celebration of the club’s fabled Centre Court, scene of probably more 20th-century sporting drama than any single arena outside Madison Square Garden.The tennis, generally, has been dependably sublime, hitting repeated peaks. The commentary has swung between ooh-aah Iga, ta-ra, and, bloody hell, Nick’s at it again. McEnroe has gone from grey to white, and Sue’s face might yet crack entirely while smiling at his old jokes in her farewell fortnight. Billie Jean has been an enduring Queen. And the weather has … not been awful. Continue reading...
The brash Australian is a divisive but definitely modern figure, and the embodiment of sport in the social media ageIn the mid-90s, when the internet was all prairie-land as far as you could see, there was a genuine feeling this new frontier was a force for enlightenment. Here was a space where the shared human essence could coalesce and commune, a pure shore on which the future would be crafted by gentle, unhurried humans with bulbous green Apple Macintoshes, concerned only with upcycling blogs and really cool typefaces and artisan bagel houses in Prague.The reality has of course been a little different. It turns out our shared human essence isn’t a mild dove-like thing, but is instead an ambient swamp...
The US Open champion played her first matches on Centre Court at a time when new heroes are needed at SW19Farewell to all that then. In the end Emma Raducanu’s first superstar Wimbledon, her first as a champion – or increasingly, in front of a fond, rapt Centre Court as Em! – could only stretch to three days and two matches.On a chilly June afternoon the British No 1 was beaten in straight sets by Caroline Garcia of France. And there will be sadness at such a meek exit. For Raducanu because she was simply blown away by a more powerful opponent, a moment of cold, hard sporting reality for a teenager who is still just a year into her...
Some love it, some love to hate it, but today the grass-court swing is as strong as it has ever been since 1990Filip Krajinovic has been a professional tennis player nearly half his life. He knows himself on the tennis court as well as he knows anything else and after 14 years on the tour he was so sure grass-court tennis was not for him that he barely even tried: “Every year I find a way to skip the tournaments, just coming to Wimbledon, losing first round,” he said last week. “It’s been the last 10 years like that.”And yet, it turns out, he was completely wrong. This year, at 30, he arrived at Queen’s for his long-awaited first main-draw...