Sharapova, American Men Fall Flat at Wimbledon
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Wimbledon, England — This is Wimbledon, not the French Open, where the best Americans struggle to win matches. Wasn’t this the year when Andy Roddick, two times a finalist, wouldn’t have to contend with Roger Federer until the final? Wasn’t this the place where James Blake, often disappointed by grass but always hopeful that his shotmaking skills would one day bring him far, didn’t have to play anyone ranked inside the top 90 until the third round? Weren’t Sam Querrey and John Isner, the youngest of the top Americans, going to be relieved that their huge serves would compensate for their less-than-perfect footwork and inconsistent strokes?
After four days on the lawns under unusually sunny skies, all those American men — and a few more — are gone. So is Maria Sharapova, the former champion whose once dominant season has turned into a struggle (see below).
Roddick was the last to fall, and he hit the ground the hardest. Despite serving a whopping 73% on his first serve and firing 27 aces, Roddick couldn’t break Janko Tipsarevic’s serve once (he failed to convert eight break chances). Tipsarevic needed only one break of his own to pull off a 6-7(5), 7-5, 6-4, 7-6(4) upset.
Roddick had a chance to push the match to a decisive fifth set when Tipsarevic served at 4-5, 15-40. On the second of those two set points, Roddick waited eagerly for a second serve, but when it arrived — soft and up the middle, like many others from Tipsarevic — an indecisive Roddick meekly bunted the ball into the net. The lips of Roddick’s brother John, watching from the player’s box, were easy to read: “What the f– was that?” he asked. Roddick said he was fooled by the ball, but didn’t offer any excuses for his poor returning and bad play on important points. His shoulder, which caused him to miss the French Open, wasn’t bothering him, and his lack of match play, while not ideal, wasn’t the reason, either.
“The guy hit average serves in the middle of the box at 90 miles an hour,” Roddick said. “There’s no excuse. If I consider myself a top player, you make those. You make those in your sleep.”
He added: “It’s twice in a row here that I’ve completely blanked,” referring to his disastrous loss last year against Richard Gasquet, whom Roddick led by two sets and a break of serve. He candidly described the pressure he places on himself as his career moves into its second half.
“Either you win [another] a slam or what, you’re disappointing?” he said. “You kind of have to deal with that every day.”
Few players with a serve as weak as Tipsarevic’s can survive on grass (he also misses lots of first serves — almost half of them — and some of those miss badly, say by three or four feet). Yet the tattooed 24-year-old Serbian, who reached the fourth round here last year, proclaimed, “This is my favorite tennis tournament and my favorite tennis court.”
Perhaps it’s because he’s a superb shotmaker with a flair for the dramatic and the fear that if he doesn’t play well against top players, “I’m going to get killed on the court.” At the Australian Open, Tipsarevic won the crowd when he pushed Roger Federer to five sets. Yesterday, he played steady from the baseline, but mixed in enough crisp volleys and down-the-line backhands — his best shot — to stay with Roddick and topple him when the chance arrived. Afterward the well-read (he’s a Dostoevsky fan) and thoughtful Serb spoke philosophically about moments like this, which come rarely for a pro who spends more time on outer courts than the game’s largest stages.
“The biggest happiness that I feel in myself is when I come to the locker room,” Tipsarevic said. “When you come back and your emotions are down and your brain starts to work.”
Before Roddick lost, James Blake could not solve Rainer Schuettler, the former Australian Open finalist (2003) whose game all but collapsed in recent years after a rash of injuries, a bout with mononucleosis, and a crisis of confidence. Blake never looked comfortable and Schuettler simply outlasted him, 6-3, 6-7(8), 4-6, 6-4, 6-4. Blake said his footing continues to trouble him on grass.
“I think I can get away with not moving my feet and it just causes a little bit of a tornado in my head, where I’m playing sometimes not aggressive enough, but it’s because my feet aren’t getting there,” Blake said. “I just didn’t feel like my feet weren’t under me.”
With Roddick and Blake gone, the last American man standing at Wimbledon is Bobby Reynolds. The 25-year-old Reynolds was a standout at Vanderbilt University; he plays hard-serving lefty Feliciano Lopez today.
***
Maria Sharapova has tricked us again. Just when it looked like the Russian star was ready, after three years of alternating brilliant and so-so performances, to dominate the sport — just after she won the Australian Open and recaptured the no. 1 ranking — Sharapova has gone caput. At Wimbledon yesterday, she suffered one of the worst defeats of her career, 6-2, 6-4 to Alla Kudryavtseva, a 20-year-old Russian ranked no. 154 in the world.
Not so long ago in women’s tennis, the 154th-ranked player would never — under any circumstances — give a three-time major champion a test at the tournament where her high-risk game is most rewarded. Is Kudryavtseva an example of how women’s tennis has changed for the better in the last 10 years? Or is she simply another indicator of the mediocrity at the very top of the game right now?
Fans rightly complain that women’s tennis is often subjected to a double standard when quality is debated. When top players win easily, there’s no depth, yet when they lose here and there, they are criticized as not as good as their predecessors. It seems to me that both sides of this debate are correct at the moment: The women’s game is deeper than ever, but the top women are not as fierce as in years past. Already at Wimbledon we’ve seen the top seed save match points and the no. 3 seed dismissed.
No complaints, however, about the likable and talkative Kudryavtseva, who nearly pulled off an upset of this magnitude last year when she came within two points of beating Venus Williams, the eventual champion.
“I thought, okay, at least I go for it,” she said. “Sooner or later it has to go in.”
Mr. Perrotta is a senior editor at Tennis magazine. He can be reached at tperrotta@tennismagazine.com.
How the Top Seeds Fared
Men – Second Round
Rafael Nadal (2), ESP, def. Ernests Gulbis, LAT, 5-7, 6-2, 7-6 (2), 6-3.
Janko Tipsarevic, SRB, def. Andy Roddick (6), USA, 6-7 (5), 7-5, 6-4, 7-6 (4).
Richard Gasquet (8), FRA, def. Sebastien Grosjean, FRA, 6-2, 6-2, retired.
Rainer Schuettler, GER, def. James Blake (9), USA, 6-3, 6-7 (8), 4-6, 6-4, 6-4.
Andy Murray (12), BRI, def. Xavier Malisse, BEL, 6-4, 6-2, 6-2.
Paul-Henri Mathieu (14), FRA, def. Jeremy Chardy, FRA, 6-3, 7-5, 7-6 (1).
Radek Stepanek (16), CZE, def. Viktor Troicki, SRB, 6-7 (1), 6-7 (3), 6-3, 6-1, 6-2.
Mikhail Youzhny (17), RUS, def. Stefano Galvani, ITA, 4-6, 6-4, 6-3, 3-6, 6-3.
Women – Second Round
Jelena Jankovic (2), SRB, def. Carla Suarez Navarro, ESP, 6-1, 6-3.
Alla Kudryavtseva, RUS, def. Maria Sharapova (3), RUS, 6-2, 6-4.
Elena Dementieva (5), RUS, def. Timea Bacsinszky, SUI, 4-6, 6-3, 6-3.
Venus Williams (7), USA, def. Anne Keothavong, BRI, 7-5, 6-2.
Dinara Safina (9), RUS, def. Hsieh Su-wei, TPE, 6-3, 6-2.
Alisa Kleybanova, RUS, def. Daniela Hantuchova (10), SVK, 6-3, 4-6, 6-1.
Tamarine Tanasugarn, Thailand, def. Vera Zvonareva (13), RUS, 7-6 (10), 4-6, 6-3.
Victoria Azarenka (16), BLR, def. Sorana Cirstea, ROM, 6-1, 6-3.
Nadia Petrova (21), RUS, def. Mara Santangelo, ITA, 6-4, 7-5.