Making Sense of the Madness

There are busy days at the majors, and then there’s the second—better known as manic—Monday at Wimbledon. The tournament is famous for its traditions, and one of them is to put all 16 fourth-round matches on the schedule in a single afternoon. This has it drawbacks, since there is no play at all on Sunday, when more people could be watching. But there isn’t a better day of tennis all season than Manic Monday. Here are a few of the highlights; it’s amazing how much can happen on a day when there aren’t all that many surprises.

The most-anticipated showdown of the tournament turned out to be a straightforward affair, if you go by the scores. Of course, nothing is straightforward when siblings face off, and especially these two siblings. Despite coming up with her best, cleanest performance in months, Serena was subdued in victory—there were no post-match twirls, and only the hint of a smile. In fact, Serena was all-business all day long. Her strokes were short and sharp and to the point. From I could see, she used a slightly more abbreviated take-back on her forehand than normal; it generated the same pace, without generating the errors that it had in her last match. Serena was so dialed in that she even muscled a running slice forehand past Venus.

In April, when Serena beat Simona Halep in Miami, I wrote that you know you’ve made it in women’s tennis when Serena gives you her A game and her undivided attention. Was there any question that she would give it to her sister, a five-time champion here? Just as important, there were no signs of nervous panic from Serena. She knew she couldn’t afford any breakdowns in form; it’s not often, or ever, that she faces an opponent who has beaten her 11 times.

In moving from match to match today, this one stuck out for its atmosphere alone. You could feel it right away: The tension was palpably higher inside Centre Court than anywhere else, as Murray filled the arena with an operatic emotional intensity. It was, at times, hard to watch, and I’m not even British. Judging from the video here, Murray was hard to understand, too.

The vibe changed considerably when Roger Federer stepped onto the grass after this one was completed; the Swiss was, by comparison, light entertainment. Federer has played all of his matches in the cozy confines of Centre so far, and each of them has felt like an encore performance of the Maestro’s showstoppers. For all of his popularity in London, though, Federer isn’t family, the way Murray is.

In his third-round and fourth-round victories, Murray has won the first two sets before suffering a dip in concentration and losing the third. It’s not surprising, really. He gets so keyed up for Wimbledon matches that, once he builds a safe lead—or as safe as possible in tennis—he has a letdown. Then he gets keyed up again.

It’s the middle of the first-set tiebreaker and Vandeweghe can’t stop smiling. Why should she? It’s all working for the Californian against Lucie Safarova at the moment. Up 3-0, Vandeweghe comes in and hits a mediocre high forehand volley. But a mediocre volley on grass is not always such a bad idea. The ball skids harmlessly down the middle of the court, yet it’s still far enough out of Safarova’s reach that she can’t do anything with it.

Where did Vandeweghe, who has never been this far at a Grand Slam, get her carefree confidence? Look no further than the way she finished the match. Up 5-4 in the second-set tiebreaker, she used her Samprasian service delivery to fire two unreturnable balls. Any tennis player with that shot in her back pocket would be smiling, too.

Is there a Lleyton Hewitt, everything-is-not-as-it-appears quality to the way Wozniacki competes? Last week, I wrote about how Hewitt has always looked every inch the hardened warrior, but that, as his career has gone on, he has struggled in the most pressure-packed moments. Today Wozniacki, as she usually does, looked every inch the tenacious fighter against Muguruza. Even when she’s down, Caro never appears to believe she’s out, or throw in the towel mentally. But when the time came to stay in the match, with Muguruza serving for it at 5-4 in the second set, Wozniacki flinched. She netted a routine backhand early in the game, and netted an equally routine return of serve at break point, before Muguruza closed it with an ace.

This was just a fourth-round match, and the scores were only 4 and 4, but the Spaniard fell to the court in a burt of joyful relief when it was over. She plays Timea Bacsinszky next, and is in the wide-open bottom half of the draw. Muguruza set the bar high for victory celebrations today; what is she going to do if she wins the tournament?

An Australian tennis writer called Nick Kyrgios a “mystery wrapped in an enigma” after his loss to Gasquet on Monday, and that’s a good summation, even if it is a misquotation. Aside from removing a pair of his socks (and getting permission from his opponent to do it), hugging a ball boy, and incurring a fine for unsportsmanlike conduct, Kyrgios also managed to do what he does so infrequently on the big stages: Falter in the clutch.

In the third-set tiebreaker, Kyrgios ripped two winners to save two match points. But when he had a set point in the fourth-set tiebreaker, and looked sure to take it to a fifth, he double faulted twice. Kyrgios plays high-wire tennis, and I’ve marveled at his ability to stay on that wire. But even the most brazenly self-assured of young players fall off eventually.

Leave it to Kyrgios to dominate the conversation about a match in which his opponent played the far superior tennis. Gasquet finished with 67 winners against 21 errors, and did well to hang in the fourth set after squandering those match points—and smashing his racquet—in the third.

Everyone loves the Wawrinka backhand; John McEnroe has even taken to calling it the greatest shot he's ever seen. (To which Steffi Graf asks, “You do remember watching my forehand, right?”) But Wawrinka’s wasn’t the only backhand worth watching on Court 1 on Monday. Goffin has an elegant way of sliding into a hard-hit shot on his backhand side, absorbing the pace with his two-hander, and redirecting the ball with ease. Still, Goffin’s counter-punch wasn’t enough for Wawrinka’s punch.

“I don’t want to talk to you,” Jankovic tells the chair umpire. Except that JJ does seem to want to talk to him. In fact, she has just spent the last minute berating the man for handing her three time violations. One game later, her run at Wimbledon is over at the hands of Radwanska, who has taken to the grass this year like the former Wimbledon finalist she is. Jankovic may not want to talk to the umpire when it’s over, but she does forgive him long enough to shake his hand on her way out. Another Wimbledon is over for her, but the 30-year-old has been around too long to start holding grudges now.