Bill Simons
Wimbledon
WOULDN’T WE ALL? As one elderly Scottish lady was finishing off her ham and bacon breakfast, she started musing about Emma Raducanu’s supposed relationship with the hunky Carlos Alcaraz and sighed, “I wouldn’t mind being in a relationship with Carlos.”
THE LIFE AND TIMES OF AMANDA ANISIMOVA: The phrase, “It was nice while it lasted,” came to mind. After all, eight years ago, the Florida phenom Amanda Anisimova had it all: dreamy power shots, one of the best backhands on the planet, a gritty Russian heritage, gentleman-prefer-blondes good looks, a loving family and a fearless young mindset: “Hit free and sprint easy. After all, I’m the young hunter – there’s nothing to lose.”
And, boy, was she a winner.
She beat a kid named Coco in the 2017 US Open juniors final, and had a stunning star-is-born run at the 2019 French Open. Although ranked No. 51, she downed the defending Roland Garros champ Simona Halep, as well as Aryna Sabalenka, and in the semis she had Ash Barty on her considerable heels. But the Aussie put the teen in her place. Still, Amanda, the youngest American to make a Slam in 20 years, had made her point.
The future seemed to be hers. But fate had another idea. Like Sabalenka, Jelena Ostapenka and Steve Johnson, Amanda lost her dad way too early. A week before the 2019 US Open, her 52-year-old dad Constantin suffered a fatal heart attack. Then, just a month later, Amanda charged back onto the court. Overwhelmed, she didn’t understand the importance of pausing.
Grieving takes time. She told the New York Times that her dad’s death was “the hardest thing that’s ever happened to me, and I don’t really talk about it with anyone…I think definitely that’s the reason why I had a couple of tough years playing tennis…I was just trying to ignore and push it away and just telling everybody that everything was fine. And I think it really wasn’t, and I didn’t take enough time for myself to try and recover…I felt like everyone wanted me to go on court, and I don’t know if I was fully there for that period…It was just a very confusing time for me…I was just kind of lost…The only thing that has helped me is just playing tennis and being on the court. That’s what makes me happy, and I know it would make him happy.”
Then Amanda suffered injuries, plus there were coaching changes, ranking dips, a case of COVID and many tears. In her ten Slams after her run to the 2019 French Open semis, she only once reached the quarterfinals – at Wimbledon in 2022.
Still, she endured. After all, she had many assets. Her serve is rather nasty and her deep groundies are pure weapons that bring to mind the best of ball strikers – Capriati, Davenport and Sharapova. Naomi Osaka once said of Amanda: “It almost felt like I was fighting for my life out there…It was jarring to always be on my back foot.”
But as writer Zach Baron once noted, “The random cruelty of the game has a way of culling even its most talented players.” Amanda’s career, and, worse yet, her life, were in shambles.
In 2022 she wisely took an eight-month break from tennis. She went to college, made friends and began to paint – everything from light pastel abstracts to dark foreboding offerings. Van Gogh was her favorite. But she missed tennis, and decided to return to the sport she loved.
But critics were skeptical. Time and again, players who’ve soared high early in their careers have crashed. Many who left the tour to take a break or start a family never recaptured their magic. And, as Amanda returned to the circuit, she was slow coming out of the gates. Last year she lost in the Wimbledon qualifying and in the first round of the US Open. But she soldiered on. Most recently, she hired the veteran trainer Shadi Soleymani, in a move that’s helped her mightily.
Despite many first-round losses, she did win in Doha, and she reached the finals at Queens.
Here at Wimbledon, she took down two defending champions, Petra Kvitova and Barbora Kreijcikova. In the fourth round, she struggled to subdue the No. 30 seed, Czech Linda Noskova.
Today, in the quarterfinals against the 36-year-old Russian veteran Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, Amanda couldn’t convert two match points in the second set, but she eventually prevailed in a tight tiebreak 6-1, 7-6(9).
As the American fell in glee onto the Court One grass, I recalled that Amanda had once tweeted a comment from author Marianne Williamson that contended, “Pain can burn you up and destroy you or burn you up and redeem you.”
Today there was redemption.
LITTLE LAURA LOSES – BUT AMAZES: Laura Siegemund is short – just 5’ 6”. By tennis standards, she’s old – 37. She’s good in doubles, but less so in singles. She was No. 26 nine years ago – now she’s No. 104. In her seven Wimbledon appearances she’s never gotten beyond the third round.
But at this year’s Wimbledon she’s been a wonder, as she raced to the quarterfinals. And today she used all her clever anticipation, speed and craftiness to take it to the much bigger, far more powerful No. 1 seed, Aryna Sabalenka.
Hoping to become the oldest Wimbledon player to beat a Top Ten player in 31 years, the German seemed to know where Sabalenka was going to hit before Aryna did. She scored two early breaks. Smart, scrappy and fleet, Laura used countless slices, boundless imagination and improvisation to disrupt a mighty foe. “She’s dismantling the Sabalenka mind,” said broadcaster Samantha Smith.
Siegemund coulda, shoulda won the match. She was serving to go up a double break deep into the fifth set. Aryana was wobbling. But Sabalenka countered with slices of her own and called on her power and her big match experience to win 4-6, 6-2, 6-4, reaching her twelfth career Slam semi and her third at Wimbledon, where she’ll face No. 13 Anisimova.
GRIGOR WINS THE BATTLE BUT LOSES THE WAR: If anyone has won the battle but lost the war at this year’s Wimbledon, it’s Grigor Dimitrov.
The good news: the popular 34-year-old made it all the way to the fourth round, where he was scoring the upset of the tournament. He won the first two sets against the top seed, Jannik Sinner. Plus, he’d just hit an ace.
The bad news was that, as he scored that ace, he suffered the most impactful injury deep into a Slam since Alexander Zverev endured a wretched ankle injury against Rafa at the 2022 French Open.
But that was a tight match. Against Sinner, Dimitrov, with his beautiful backhand and imposing slices, appeared to be in ascendance. And his backers bristled when, even though there was an hour left of daylight, officials chose to close Centre Court’s roof.
The momentum shifted. Dimitrov cooled off, and soon, for the fifth consecutive time, he withdrew from a Slam. How gut wrenching can you get? The whole arc of the tournament changed. Just ask Ben Shelton, who’ll face Sinner in the semis, if the Italian is healthy. He fell early in the Dimitrov match, and had to have a scan of his elbow today.
BE WARY OF LOVE: Nick Kyrgios said Jannik Sinner will have a better career than Carlos Alcaraz, “Because Alcaraz loves girls. He might get distracted. He might party too much. Sinner will stay a bit locked in, I think.” Alcaraz responded by saying, “They’re funny comments, which, coming from him, don’t surprise me. It’s no secret that Jannik always has fewer ups and downs than me. It’s something I’ve been working on. It has nothing to do with the nightlife world.”
EMPATHY PREVAILS: Wimbledon relaxed its strict dress code to allow two Portuguese players to pay tribute to Diogo Jota, the young soccer star who just died in a car crash.
SAY IT ISN’T SO: In her seven Slams since she’s returned from giving birth to her daughter, Naomi Osaka hasn’t gotten beyond the third round.
QUOTEBOOK:
“Sometimes you have the luck of the devil.” – A voice in the press room after Jannik Sinner got through to the semis due to Grigor Dimitrov’s injury
“Keep your hands off my fries and we’re good.” – Our favorite message on X from Amanda Anisimova
