LONDON—Of tennis’ major championships, Wimbledon remains the one where both competitors walk off the court together. Civil. Communal. Respectful. Such are Wimbledon values.
Fitting indeed to have witnessed 30-year-old Angelique Kerber and 21-year-old Daria Kasatkina exit Centre Court together in the wake of what they had created.
The score line will show that Kerber won their quarterfinal 6-3, 7-5. But in the final game, it took Kerber seven match points to close it out.
Beat your opponent on your first match point and you have swatted away an insect. Win it on your second and you’ll slightly raise an eyebrow. Reach a third, though, and the cut could now become an infection. Four: beyond annoying. Five: Are you kidding? Six: OK, surely this time. Seven: Torture, humiliation lurking around the corner. By this stage, empathy surfaces. One minute you appear to rule the day, but as those match points turn to dust, might the climate change completely? Might jail-keeper become prisoner? To compete is also to relate.
Said Kerber, “It's not so easy because you feel your nerves, you feel you get a little bit tight, especially if you have your third or fourth match point again. But this is tennis. I think this makes the tennis also excited.”
That last game had lasted 16 points—five of which had featured double-digit rallies. One of them was arguably the rally of the tournament—a microcosm of the entire match. Kerber served at deuce, having already seen five match points vanish, the last two courtesy of exquisite Kasatkina drop shots.
WATCH—Match point from Kerber's win over Kasatkina in quarterfinals: