Key moments
I was on one leg today, says beaten Zverev
Rick Broadbent writes: Wimbledon loves a comeback. Victory grabbed from the jaws, nay gullet, of defeat, and a routine win turned into tennis hell and hokum. Taylor Fritz delivered one of these delicious mood swings as he saw off the fourth seed Alexander Zverev, a more garlanded German who exudes an air of unfettered self-appreciation.
After this marathon 4-6, 6-7, 6-4, 7-6, 6-3 triumph of sticking around, Fritz now plays Lorenzo Musetti and, with all due respect, must be thinking that he will never get a better chance of making a grand-slam semi-final. This one came after being two sets down and winning just two of four break points forged during 3½ hours of heavy slugging. Zverev won one of two. Small margins but a chasm in terms of assessments.
The American is the 13th seed and so no mug, but Zverev had caveats. He had an MRI scan after his match against Cameron Norrie and had been diagnosed with a bone edema in his knee. So while he said he respected Fritz for coming back from two sets down and that he was sure he was going to the last four, he added: “I was on one leg today. The match was not high level. It wasn’t a particularly great tennis match. There weren’t really long rallies because I couldn’t play rallies.”
There was more of this. “From the fourth set I was really struggling to serve and to jump off.” He could not run for drop shots. “I was limping more than running,” he said.
This may be the definition of a knee-jerk reaction and in the interests of fairness, we should add that Zverev said “Taylor is a great guy”, albeit this appraisal did not apply to everyone in the Fritz box. His team had been “extremely respectful”, but others were “maybe not from the tennis world” and “a bit over the top”. So there was much to discuss when the two met at the net when the cursory platitudes were replaced by an in-depth post-mortem. Anyway, he does not need surgery and is confident he will be fit to defend his Olympic title.
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As for Fritz, who made the quarter-final two years ago, he hit 69 winners, made fewer errors, and had a different take. “I thought the match seemed extremely normal until I was up the break in the fifth, and then I feel like that’s when he was limping and moving.” Point taken.
In an apparent reference to Zverev’s domestic assault court case, Fritz’s girlfriend claimed after the match that the American had beaten the German “for the girls”. In a post on Instagram, Morgan Riddle, a social media influencer, initially uploaded a picture of Centre Court with the caption “cheer loud ladies”, before filming herself and writing “when ur man wins 4 the girls”. The assault case against Zverev was dropped after he reached a £170,000 out-of-court settlement with this former girlfriend Brenda Patea last month. Zverev has always denied the allegations and Riddle’s post was later deleted.
Djokovic hits out at ‘disrespectful’ fans
Novak Djokovic accused Wimbledon spectators of disrespect after reaching a 15th quarter-final at the All England Club. Despite easing through with a straight-sets victory over Holger Rune, the 24-times grand slam champion was left furious after claiming that fans of his opponent had booed him throughout the match.
This was not much of a contest on the court but the feisty edge between Djokovic and sections of the Centre Court crowd made for tasty viewing. The No 2 seed from Serbia became riled with those making a lingering “Rune chant” and stared them down at various points throughout his two hours on the court. Initially he thought they were boos in his direction before the umpire Nico Helwerth tried to clarify the situation.
Ultimately, the chant merely fired Djokovic up to raise his level. He comfortably controlled proceedings and saved both of the two break points he faced during a 6-3, 6-4, 6-2 win over Rune, the No 15 seed from Denmark.
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Collins’ Centre Court dream ended by Krejcikova
Alyson Rudd writes: Barbora Krejcikova, the 2021 French Open champion, has defeated Danielle Collins 7-5, 6,3. The first set was tightly contested until Collins made a few costly mistakes on her forehand which allowed her opponent to break serve. In the second set, trailing 3-1, Collins departed the court for treatment on her left thigh and Krejcikova, 28, kept warm by jogging around No 1 Court draped in two towels.
The American, in her final season on the tour, became in March the lowest-ranked player to win the Miami Open, which prompted calls for her to rethink her decision to retire. The 30-year-old had said her ambition was to play on Centre Court one day and this represented her last chance. She has chosen to retire to try to start a family but, as she suffers from both rheumatoid arthritis and endometriosis, is aware that those conditions might make that less than straightforward.
Feisty Ostapenko ends Putintseva’s run
Alyson Rudd writes: Jelena Ostapenko, the No 13 seed, is through to the quarter-finals after a 6-2, 6-3 win over Yulia Putintseva. The Latvian won the French Open in 2017 and reached the Wimbledon semi-final the following year. She is arguably the most fun to watch of those women left in the tournament. Inconsistent, yes, but her aggressive, no-holds-barred style is enormous fun.
Putintseva kicked out at the ground upon losing the first set, which was jam-packed with short punchy points. She simply had no answer to Ostapenko in this sort of feisty form but she was able to break in the opening game of the second set. This had the effect of riling her opponent who broke straight back. The world No41 knocked out the top seed and world No1 Iga Swiatek in the previous round but found this a more tricky puzzle, and she even resorted to an underarm serve which backfired as it didn’t reach the other side of the net.
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Putintseva, like Elena Rybakina, is a Russian-born Kazakh and had previously reached the quarter-finals of the French and the US Open. She was on an eight-match winning streak so the constant stream of crisp winners off the racket of Ostapenko was no mean feat.
“I hope you enjoyed the match, this is one of my favourite tournaments,” the Latvian said to a crowd that was truly captivated.
I’ll be OK, insists De Minaur after beating Fils
Rick Broadbent writes: There are lots of ways to mark a significant win. In the old days they jumped the net. Firm handshakes are always good and tears are welcome. Some just prefer fist-fighting with the air. Alex de Minaur made his first Wimbledon quarter-final and marked it by slowly walking to the chair glum-faced and shaking his head. Seemingly, he had injured himself when playing a deft volley on the final point against Arthur Fils. “I’ll be alright,” he said in an unconvincing tone after his 6-2, 6-4, 4-6, 6-3 triumph. “I’ll find a way.”
That did not sound too promising, not least because Novak Djokovic might be next up. It got a little shaky at times, and he conceded that he had been almost unable to serve as he saw the endgame, but he made it. At least his girlfriend was smiling up in the No 1 Court stands.
It says much about parochial whims that De Minaur, aka Demon, the world No9 and a man whose tattoo on his chest honours his Davis Cup debut for Australia, is often referred to simply as Katie Boulter’s boyfriend.
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Ah well, he is coming into his own now. Yes, the Wimbledon website made the heinous error of calling the Sydney-born star as being “from the United Kingdom” — AI was blamed by some — but he is getting towards the big time now.
He has lost only one set along the way, albeit that he had a walkover in the previous round, but seeing off a burgeoning talent in the form of a 20-year-old French tyro was impressive fare.
If one of the themes of this Wimbledon has been players growing old, Fils is another to file under next gen. He only turned 20 last month and had already humbled De Minaur on clay in Barcelona. That lifted him to No 35 in the rankings. He says he would like to be an actor, loves French rap, models his game on the uber-flamboyance of Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and gave a colourful description of his topsy-turvy win in the previous round. “At the start of the fourth I said to myself, ‘Arthur, now you shut the f*** up, now you play and stop complaining about everything.’ ”
There was much to complain about early on as the first set went in quick time. Fils did not fashion a single breakpoint and De Minaur made a mere four unforced errors in the set. A criticism of the London-based Australian is that he sometimes goes into his shell and can become a little conservative, so when the second set became more of a contest it was a test of his ambition. From 3-0 down he duly won five straight games. In truth, he did not need to do too much as Fils was peppering his game with manifold errors and needed another of those pep-talks.
Fils finally vented his ability in the fourth set, but De Minaur was too fast and too good. Fils hit more winners, but De Minaur was more reliable and broke serve nine times.
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The win puts De Minaur on collision course with Djokovic, who is due on court later. Even facing a Djokovic with restricted movement after knee surgery is a daunting task, and De Minaur will hope his apparent injury does not hamper his shot at the last four.
Australians used to rule the roost in these parts, of course, but Nick Kyrgios’s appearance in the men’s final two years ago was the first by an Australian since Mark Philippoussis in 2003. The last winner was Lleyton Hewitt the year before. Now a mentor to De Minaur, Hewitt was up and down like a jack-in-the-box as he watched his man triumph. He may need some of that old-time grit for the next act.
Svitolina wears black ribbon during win
Alyson Rudd writes: Elina Svitolina, ranked 21, is through to the quarter-finals and would certainly be a popular winner here. She was the darling of last year’s Championships as a new mother married to Gaël Monfils, another tennis star, with the goodwill of tennis fans given what her country was suffering.
Svitolina has spoken about how it sometimes feels that the world at large has forgotten about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and how she uses her sporting platform to highlight the war. She wore a black ribbon out on No2 court to commemorate the victims of an attack on a children’s hospital in Kyiv earlier in the day, considered one of the most significant Russian strikes on the Ukrainian capital.
Monfils, who lost in the third round here to Grigor Dimitrov, watched on as his wife scurried about with a business-like air and her long sleeves rolled up.
Xinyu Wang, ranked 40 with a strong doubles background, battled hard but Svitolina was a woman on a mission and in composed command of most points, full of baseline aggression.
“It’s a very difficult day today for Ukrainian people,” she said, struggling to contain her tears. “It’s very difficult to read the news.”
Rybakina through as Kalinskaya retires hurt
Alyson Rudd writes: Elena Rybakina is surely the tournament favourite as the top seed left in the championships. Rybakina won here in 2022 and while not quite yet reaching the levels of two years ago is certainly in good enough form to triumph once again as the Russian born Kazakhstani defeated Anna Kalinskaya who was forced to retire with a wrist issue.
The No4 seed was broken to love in her opening service game with Kalinskaya, ranked 17, looking very sprightly and completely at ease on Centre. Sometimes you watch Rybakina and wonder how the 25-year-old won a grand slam given her relative lack of movement and urgency around the court but she lets her ground strokes and her powerful serve do the talking.
Kalinsaya’s serve was well oiled and consistent but completely dismantled as Rybakina broke it in the sixth game with an almost sinister effortlessness and then backed it up with a few aces and a sort of presidential air. Trailing 3-4, Kalinskaya received on-court treatment to her right arm while her opponent practiced her serve. Dispirited, the Russian lost her serve to love and Rybakina took the first set with an unreachable backhand down the line.
It became a painful watch given Kalinskya was clearly suffering discomfort and she retired with the score 3-0 in the second set. Rybakina said having the roof closed helped her game but she would have prevailed on the windiest of courts.
Tall order Mpetshi Perricard shows depth of French talent
Elgan Alderman writes: Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard’s fortunate failures are over. He had been a very lucky loser indeed, a late call-up for the first round because of injury and still here in the fourth round, with £226,000 in prize money. On his 21st birthday, his run is now over.
Lorenzo Musetti, the No 25 seed, is into a grand-slam quarter-final for the first time after winning 4-6, 6-3, 6-3, 6-2 on No 2 Court. With Jannik Sinner and Jasmine Paolini also in singles contention, a first Italian Wimbledon singles champion is on the cards.
Mpetshi Perricard was looking to make history. Four lucky losers — players who lost in qualifying but were given a place in the main draw — had previously made it into the last-16 of the men’s singles at Wimbledon: Bernard Mitton and Jaidip Mukerjea (1973), John McCurdy (1983) and Dick Norman (1995). Never before had one made it a stage further.
The shy Frenchman was the first seed in the men’s qualifying and was drawn against compatriots in all three rounds. He saw off Ugo Blanchet and Antoine Escoffier but defeat by Maxime Janvier kept him out of the championships proper. That is until Alejandro Davidovich Fokina withdrew with a back injury before the first round began and Mpetshi Perricard, who had never won a match in a grand-slam main draw, took his place.
Mpetshi Perricard is 6ft 8in, which of course means his serve is enormous, touching 140mph. Fast enough to knock the horns off a horse, as L’Équipe put it. In the match against Musetti, he regularly sent down second serves above 120mph.
In similar fashion to that beloved by the big-serving, ceiling-headbutting John Isner, Mpetshi Perricard is prone to reach a tie-break. In his opener against Sebastian Korda, the No 20 seed from the United States, he hit 52 aces and only the fifth set did not end 7-6. His second-round tie with the 5ft 7in Yoshihito Nishioka was one of the most one-sided in this year’s championships: a 6-4, 6-1, 6-2 win in 71 minutes. Emil Ruusuvuori was the third vanquished opponent.
Those victories yielded 105 aces by Mpetshi Perricard, compared with 29 by opponents, and he gave up only one break point out of 14 offered. On this occasion Mpetshi Perricard’s serve was not as all-conquering as in previous rounds, with only ten aces to go with eight double faults (one of them sprayed at 131mph on break point). After a dominant first set for the Frenchman, Musetti was able to break five times.
Mpetshi Perricard is part of the new generation of French talent. He, Luca Van Assche and Arthur Fils — Mpetshi Perricard is the oldest — won Challenger titles last year just as Richard Gasquet, Gaël Monfils and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga did in 2005. Fils, Mpetshi Perricard’s great friend, is also in the fourth round here, taking on Alex de Minaur on No 1 Court.
There will be more to come from the tall Frenchman. As a wild card Mpetshi Perricard won his first ATP title in May, in his home city of Lyon, and at Queen’s he beat Ben Shelton before losing to Billy Harris. He is at a provisional career-best No 44 in the world rankings.
Sinner and Alcaraz on course for duel of phenoms
On the men’s side, two of the favourites for the singles title were also in action yesterday in the form of Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner, a pair whose budding rivalry, one assumes, will likely be the driving force in men’s tennis for at least the next decade.
The Hollywood magnetism of Alcaraz and the sedate, almost shy manner of Sinner make for a fascinating contrast, and Alyson Rudd was there yesterday to watch their matches unfold. One more win for each, remember, and the two will meet in the semi-finals.
• Read Alyson Rudd’s full report
Raducanu out
The biggest story from Sunday was Emma Raducanu’s 6-2, 5-7, 6-2 defeat at the hands of Lulu Sun, a result that came a day after the 21-year-old Briton had withdrawn from her mixed-doubles match alongside Andy Murray.
Raducanu has said that she did not regret her decision to withdraw from the doubles to focus on her singles campaign, citing soreness in the right wrist and a need to prioritise her body. She also required a medical timeout after slipping on court in the early stages of the deciding third set
• Read the full report from Stuart Fraser
Order of play
11am start unless stated
Seeds in brackets
Centre Court (1.30pm): (4) Elena Rybakina (Kaz) v (17) Anna Kalinskaya (Russ); (13) Taylor Fritz (US) v (4) Alexander Zverev (Ger); (15) Holger Rune (Den) v (2) Novak Djokovic (Ser).
No 1 Court (1pm): Arthur Fils (Fr) v (9) Alex De Minaur (Aus); Yulia Putintseva (Kaz) v (13) Jelena Ostapenko (Lat); (11) Danielle Collins (US) v (31) Barbora Krejcikova (Cz).
No 2 Court: (25) Lorenzo Musetti (It) v Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard (Fr); (21) Elina Svitolina (Ukr) v Wang Xinyu (China); (1) Matthew Ebden (Aus) and Ellen Perez (Aus) v Andres Molteni (Arg) and Asia Muhammad (US).
No 3 Court: (1) Marcel Granollers (Sp) and Horacio Zeballos (Arg) v Sebastian Báez (Arg) and Dustin Brown (Jam); (11) Coco Gauff (US) and Jessica Pegula (US) v (5) Sara Errani (It) and Jasmine Paolini (It); Jackson Withrow (US) and Aldila Sutjiadi (Indo) v (5) Andrea Vavassori (It) and Sara Errani (It).
No 8 Court (12.30pm): (15) Asia Muhammad (US) and Aldila Sutjiadi (Indo) v Timea Babos (Hun) and Nadiia Kichenok (Ukr); Harri Heliovaara (Fin) and Gabriela Dabrowski (Can) v (2) Michael Venus (NZ) and Erin Routliffe (NZ).
No 9 Court (12.30pm): (12) Nathaniel Lammons (US) and Jackson Withrow (US) v Mackenzie McDonald (US) and Ben Shelton (US); (7) Jan Zielinski (Pol) and Hsieh Su-wei (Taiwan) v Hugo Nys (Mon) and Demi Schuurs (Neth).
No 12 Court: Santiago González (Mex) and Giuliana Olmos (Mex) v Luke Johnson (GB) and Freya Christie (GB); Christopher Eubanks (US) and Evan King (US) v (9) Neal Skupski (GB) and Michael Venus (NZ); Joe Salisbury (GB) and Heather Watson (GB) v Sander Gille (Bel) and Nadiia Kichenok (Ukr).
No 14 Court: (16) Sadio Doumbia (Fr) and Fabien Reboul (Fr) v (4) Marcelo Arevalo (El Salvador) and Mate Pavic (Cro); Andreas Mies (Ger) and John-Patrick Smith (Aus) v (15) Max Purcell (Aus) and Jordan Thompson (Aus); (3) Mate Pavic (Cro) and Lyudmyla Kichenok (Ukr) v John Peers (Aus) and Nicole Melichar-Martinez (US); Marcelo Arevalo (El Salvador) and Zhang Shuai (China) v Rajeev Ram (US) and Katie Volynets (US).
No 15 Court (12.30pm): (11) Maximo González (Arg) and Andres Molteni (Arg) v Charles Broom (GB) and Arthur Fery (GB); Kevin Krawietz (Ger) and Alexandra Panova (Russ) v (4) Austin Krajicek (US) and Laura Siegemund (Ger); Maximo González (Arg) and Ulrikke Eikeri (Nor) v Jean-Julien Rojer (Neth) and Bethanie Mattek-Sands (US).
No 17 Court: Lloyd Glasspool (GB) and Jean-Julien Rojer (Neth) v Constantin Frantzen (Ger) and Hendrik Jebens (Ger); (1) Hsieh Su-wei (Taiwan) and Elise Mertens (Bel) v (14) Sofia Kenin (US) and Bethanie Mattek-Sands (US); Lloyd Glasspool (GB) and Harriet Dart (GB) v Fabrice Martin (Fr) and Cristina Bucsa (Sp); Nathaniel Lammons (US) and Ena Shibahara (Japan) v Max Purcell (Aus) and Dayana Yastremska (Ukr),
Court 18: Harri Heliovaara (Fin) and Henry Patten (GB) v Rafael Matos (Br) and Marcelo Melo (Br) v Nicolas Barrientos (Col) and Miyo Kato (Japan) v Jamie Murray (GB) and Taylor Townsend (US); Julian Cash (GB) and Maia Lumsden (GB) v Henry Patten (GB) and Olivia Nicholls (GB); (6) Neal Skupski (GB) and Desirae Krawczyk (US) v Rafael Matos (Br) and Luisa Stefani (Br).
