Key moments
Djokovic serves his way out of trouble
Elgan Alderman writes Novak Djokovic turned towards his family and team and played his racket like a violin. He had just used this musical facsimile to serve his way out of trouble against Alexei Popyrin in four sets and just over three hours.
Djokovic has avoided going the way of Iga Swiatek. He may not be the No 1 seed like Poland’s finest, and he may have had knee surgery about eight hours ago (give or take a month), but he is the big beast in the men’s draw as an eight-times champion, seeking a quarter-century of grand-slam titles.
No 25 on one leg is still on. The Serbian lost the first set against Popyrin, setting pulses a-flutter that an upset sequel was about to be released. Not for the first time, he fought back from that reverse to win 4-6, 6-3, 6-4, 7-6 (7-3).
The 37-year-old’s fourth-round opponent is Holger Rune, who also worked hard to avoid defeat. The No 15 seed lost the first two sets 6-1, 7-6 (7-4) against Quentin Halys, only to take the last three 6-4, 7-6 (7-4), 6-1. Halys had already knocked out Karen Khachanov, the No 21 seed.
Swiatek again falters on grass
Chris Jones writes Iga Swiatek, the top seed, crashed out in the third round, beaten 3-6, 6-1 ,6-2 by unseeded Yulia Putintseva on Court One to reinforce the view that the Polish player does not have the variety of shot to add a grass court grand slam to her list of titles.
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The top half of the women’s draw suffered another high-profile exit when two-time finalist Ons Jabeur, the 10th seed, suffered a 6-1, 7-6 loss against Ukraine’s Elina Svitolina, the No 21 seed, on Centre Court.
Swiatek, the French Open champion, has consistently failed to transfer her skills on to grass and was left floundering on the surface after her game collapsed in the second set. Having made the quarter-finals last year it appeared Swiatek was starting to understand the changes needed to be a serious Wimbledon threat and add to her five Grand Slam wins on other surfaces.
However, an obviously troubled Swiatek, inset, made 38 unforced errors and could not stop Putintseva from assuming total control early in that second set.
Putintseva had never reached the Wimbledon third round before and looked short of power in the first set. However, the Kazakhstan right-handed player started to vary her shots, won nine games in a row and left Swiatek totally frustrated.
Putintseva, who now plays 13th seed Jelena Ostapenko, won over the crowd even before Swiatek took an extended bathroom break after the second set that led to her being booed on her return.
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Despite not having beaten Swiatek in their previous four meetings, the World No 35 turned the match on its head under the roof during a torrential downpour that produced a deafening noise from the Court One roof. It was so loud you could not hear the ball being struck and by the time the deluge had subsided, Swiatek was trailing 3-1, having had her serve broken.
That game gave Putintseva a template for victory as she used two drop shots to force Swiatek to leave her natural habitat behind the base line and move towards the net which she only usually visits at the start and finish of a match.
It really was alien territory for Swiatek who lacks the confidence in her footwork on grass to be able to produce the kind of touch needed to negate a drop shot. She consistently dumped the ball into the net and the rising tension in her game was palpable.
Swiatek failed to play a single volley in the match which took one minute short of two hours to complete. Putintseva left to a standing ovation while Swiatek headed out of Wimbledon with her favourite clay courts at the Paris Olympics next on the schedule.
Ostapenko defeated American Bernarda Pera 6-1, 6-3 to set up the fourth-round clash with Putintseva and will need to not only match her opponent’s ground stroke power but also her shot variations.
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The departure of Jabeur removes one of the sport’s most popular characters but she was out of sorts against Svitolina and the Tunisian player admitted she is struggling with her knee injury.
“I need another injection in my knee and I will take a week or a week and a half off,” she said. “The knee is always going to bother me but I am going to always play. A couple of months ago I couldn’t play. I need at least one injection every six months.”
Tears again for beaten Dart
Elgan Alderman writes Again the tears came, this time accompanied by defeat. Harriet Dart walked up to congratulate Xinyu Wang at the net with her head bowed, her face hidden beneath cap and hand. This one got away, and got too much.
For the first half of the encounter Dart was on top, and she even took a 3-0 lead in the deciding set. At the end, she lost six games in a row, unable to join Emma Raducanu in the last 16 of the women’s singles. A second appearance in the third round at Wimbledon, five years after she had previously made it this far, ended 6-2, 5-7, 3-6 in 2hr 18min.
1984 was not a dystopian year for British tennis. The Wimbledon Championships of 40 years ago produced a series of markers unthinkable during fallow decades that followed: seven British women in the second round, five in the round, two in the fourth. For the first time since that edition, it looked like Dart and Raducanu would take up the roles of Jo Durie and Anne Hobbs, but Dart was unable to make it two.
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Dart played 4hr 57min of tennis on Thursday, and though her Saturday match was set to start at 11am and finished almost six hours later, most of that was spent shielding from rain, rather than on No 2 Court.
The tense, frustrated, lachrymose anger of two days earlier gave way to focus and precision in the opening set. An-all British clash between the nation’s highest-ranked women had turned into a race to the bottom in the previous round. Dart and Katie Boulter made 110 unforced errors, but 75 of them were Boulter’s, and even though Dart sobbed at a change of ends and at 6-2 down in the deciding tie-break, she emerged as the winner in just under three hours. “When you’re in the moment and you give everything, it’s not just about on that court in that moment, it’s everything that goes before the match, months, years of the work that you put in,” she said. “I just wanted it really, really badly.
“I let things kind of get to me a little bit. I managed to regroup, which was the main thing, just fight my hardest. I was really pleased, as you probably saw at the end, to get away with the win.”
The first game took seven minutes, suggesting any success would be hard-earned. Wang, the world No 42, knocked out Jessica Pegula, the No 5 seed, in three sets on Thursday, the first time she had ever beaten a top-ten player.
After a rain delay shifted morning kick-off into afternoon, there was a further break at 3-1. Dart was broken but she regained her advantage with a booming backhand across Wang, and then cantered to the first set. The Briton rode the wave for an early break and a swift victory seemed inevitable, only for Dart to hand the initiative back. Her serve was weak and weakening. Wang attacked sub-70mph change-ups, and after one double fault in gusty conditions the Dartian ire of Thursday reappeared. Dart was one game from victory but couldn’t break serve or hold it. She hit her bag during the interval.
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Dart broke at the first opportunity in the decider. Then she lost four games in a row and draped a towel over her head during a change of ends. It ended up as six games in a row.
Wang would have been the fourth top-50 player Dart has beaten this summer, all of them in three sets. Even in defeat, she is at a provisional No 81 in the world, three places better than her previous best. It could have been better.
After beating Boulter, she teamed up with Maia Lumsden for a doubles match against Sara Errani and Jasmine Paolini, losing in three sets. “It’s been maybe five, six hours on the court,” she said on Thursday night. “Can’t wait to go to bed.” This time, she had mixed doubles with Lloyd Glasspool, although weather-induced upheaval meant she would have to stew over this one overnight before returning to the grass. The singles is over for another year.
Norrie out . . . eventually
Alyson Rudd writes: The question on Centre Court was whether Cameron Norrie’s superb performance against fellow Brit Jack Draper was born out of indignation at having been demoted to British No2 or whether Norrie had rediscovered his best form and could pose a threat to Alexander Zverev, the No4 seed. In the end Norrie battled hard but Zverev was simply captivating, allying brutality with elegance to win in straight sets. Norrie though can be proud of his scrapping and tenacity in the long and tense third set tie break.
In the first set Norrie held with consummate ease as did Zverev. And so it continued. Rallies were few and far between. And then, suddenly the German raised his level and broke serve for a 4-3 lead and suddenly he was dominating the court with an almost leisurely air and a straight sets win felt on the cards.
In the fifth game of the second set Zverev, in his eighth Wimbledon appearance, fell in trying to reach a drop shot under the umpire’s chair and lay, clutching left knee. He received courtside attention and then resumed as if nothing had happened. A double fault contributed to Norrie losing his service game to trail 5-4 and he was unable to stop his opponent taking two set lead.
Before the third set, Zvervev’s knee was bandaged and Norrie had to hope his movement might be impaired but in all honesty the German’s serve was so close to flawless that it was hard to see any slowing down mattering too much but Norrie at least took the set to a breathless tie break in which he saved five match points.
The result and the manner of it leaves Zverev hoping to become the third German to win the championships after Boris Becker and Michael Stich.
Raducanu withdrawal ends Murray’s Wimbledon career
Stuart Fraser writes: Andy Murray has played his last Wimbledon match after Emma Raducanu withdrew from the mixed doubles. The bombshell announcement was made by the All England Club on Saturday afternoon, confirming that Raducanu had cited an issue with her right wrist.
This is understood to be a precautionary decision by Raducanu before her fourth-round singles match against New Zealand’s Lulu Sun on Sunday. There is no expectation at present that she will withdraw.
Gauff coming of age at Kartal’s expense
Rick Broadbent writes: Kids, eh? It is five years since Coco Gauff had Wimbledon in the palm of her hand. She was 15 then, the youngest player to have reached the main draw in the open era, and Roger Federer’s management company was already on board. That bloke knows his stuff.
“The sky’s the limit,” Venus Williams said after losing to an opponent 24 years younger. “A star is born,” Martina Navratilova added. Old sage John McEnroe wondered if it was too much too soon, but gave in and also predicted she would be the world No1 by the age of 20.
He was wrong. Gauff is now 20 and only the world No2. She did win last year’s US Open at 19, but Emma Raducanu can beat that. Gauff, though, has grown up fast. At 16, she was delivering powerful addresses at Black Lives Matter rallies. These days her star status is now shown by the fact she gets asked the quirky-cum-inane questions that are the preserve of the A-list at press conferences. Hence, we know she has seen The Lion King stage show six times and no longer crochets in her spare time. When it comes to the actual tennis, her game is made for video montages.
● Read Rick Broadbent’s full report
Alcaraz goes the distance
Tom Kershaw writes: Frances Tiafoe may have bemoaned an inconsistent year in which he has “lost to clowns”, but the charismatic American came agonisingly close to dethroning Wimbledon’s boy-king in a pulsating four-hour, five-set match on Centre Court.
Carlos Alcaraz had trailed by two sets to one when the pair went to a tie-break in the fourth. The Spaniard had struggled to tame Tiafoe’s punishing first serve and brilliant touch at the net, but the mark of great champions is an ability to draw on every last drop of skill and courage when confronted by the abyss. Alcaraz has already demonstrated that in abundance throughout his short career and rediscovered his best to dominate the tie-break and fifth set to advance to the fourth round, where he will face Brandon Nakashima or Ugo Humbert.
Throwback Friday
Let’s get you up to speed with what happened on Friday at Wimbledon, starting with Emma Raducanu.
Stuart Fraser writes: Dare I write it, but there is a feeling of deja vu watching Emma Raducanu at Wimbledon this year. The memories of her stunning run to the 2021 US Open title are being evoked here as she blitzes her way into the fourth round without dropping a set yet.
There was a particular flashback seeing her overwhelm Greece’s Maria Sakkari. She was the opponent that Raducanu defeated in the semi-finals en route to that remarkable grand-slam triumph in New York.
The pair are separated by 126 places in the rankings, but it was Raducanu, presently at No 135 in the world, who looked like the No9 seed on the court. The 21-year-old produced an energetic display of dominance to leave the experienced 28-year-old Sakkari looking stressed throughout a 6-2, 6-3 win in one hour and 31 minutes.
Super Saturday in SW19
Hello. Day six of Wimbledon is upon us. It’s been a soggy old night in the capital, so it would not stun you if plans were a bit messed up today. However, this is the order of play.
11am start unless stated
Seeds in brackets
Centre Court (1.30): C Norrie (GB) v (4) A Zverev (Ger); (10) O Jabeur (Tun) v (21) E Svitolina (Ukr); A Popyrin (Aus) v (2) N Djokovic (Ser).
No1 Court (1.0): D Shapovalov (Can) v (14) B Shelton (US); (1) I Swiatek (Pol) v Y Putintseva (Kaz); (4) E Rybakina (Kaz) v C Wozniacki (Den); M Arevalo (El Salvador) and Zhang Shuai (China) v A Murray (GB) and E Raducanu (GB).
