Bill Simons
WIMBLEDON
MIRRA, MIRRA ON THE WALL, HOW MANY SLAMS WILL ANDREEVA WIN AFTER ALL? Mirra Andreeva, who’s still just 18, hasn’t won a Slam yet. And the odds makers say she won’t win here. She is a 12-1 long shot. But we say that if she doesn’t win five Slams by the end of her career something would be amiss in the tennis universe.
OLD MEN IN WHITE SHOES: Wimbledon doesn’t exactly look like a nursing home. But three Eastern European elders of the game are through to the fourth round: Serb Novak Djokovic who’s 38, Croatian Marin Cilic who’s 36 and Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov who’s merely 34.
WEAPON OF DEATH: Iga Swiatek isn’t the only great reader in the WTA. So is Mirra Andreeva. The 18-year-old is now reading a fantasy book she says is about “the other world, with all these creatures who tell us about their lives and all of that. Maybe it’s a little bit, I don’t know, not for my age, but I like it.” The book certainly isn’t named after Mirra’s deadly backhand. But it is called, “Weapon of Death.”
GORAN’S NOT MEEK ABOUT HIS GREEK: Coach Goran Ivanisevic was not pleased with his student Stefanos Tsitsipas, who has fallen out of the Top 20 for the first time since 2018. He told Sport Klub, “If he solves some things outside of tennis, then he has a chance and he’ll return to where he belongs. He’s too good a player to be out of the top 10.
“He wants, but he doesn’t do anything. All the ‘I want, I want’, but I don’t see that progress. I was shocked. I have never seen a more unprepared player in my life. With this knee, I am three times more fit than him. This is really bad.”
FEAR THE FRITZ – TAYLOR’S ARC OF SUCCESS Since his days as a great junior, Taylor Fritz has advanced step by orderly step: breaking into the top 100, trying to improve his craft by playing a lot on European clay, winning lesser titles like Delray, breaking through at Indian Wells despite an ankle injury, reaching the Top Five, and, of course, making it to last year’s US Open finals.
And watch out – in Britain he’s on a run. Overcoming blustery conditions, he raced to the Eastbourne title.
At Wimbledon, despite facing two young 6’ 8’’ players who unleashed thunderbolts, Fritz prevailed in dicey, back-to-back five-set matches against France’s Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard and Canada’s Gabriel Diallo.
Today, after Australian Jordan Thompson retired early, the pride of LA and American tennis reached his third Wimbledon quarters in four years. What an accomplishment!
He’ll next play the No. 17 seed Karen Khachanov, who’s only 6’ 6” and who sports a fabulous backhand. He’s the only Russian who’s scored two wins over Fritz – but they were half a decade ago.
After his victory today, Taylor confided that between matches he likes to be very orderly and proceed step by step. This exactly mirrors his incredible arc of success. His career has always trended up nicely.
Taylor commented, “I’ve always been someone who, after I do something once, I feel it’s a lot easier to do it again and repeat…Like trying to reach new levels…I’m proud that I’ve been able to continually improve…I just keep trying to get better and better, and push for more. I’ve never really been satisfied…There’s always a hunger to keep going.”
We’re getting a bit over our skis here, but to win the Wimbledon title, all Taylor has to do is down Karen and then perhaps Britain’s Cam Norrie – and maybe then a couple of other decent players named Alcaraz and Sinner.
QUOTEBOOK:
‘I think it’s a shame the umpires aren’t involved.” – Jack Draper
“I’m a Wimbledon finalist, but I got body-searched when trying to get into the grounds.” – Nick Kyrgios
NOT HAPPY WITH STANLEY: A lot of Wimbledon fans are posh. Yet when Ben Shelton, in his post-match interview, mentioned that his sister was about to start a job at Morgan Stanley, there were boos. BTW: Shelton, who faces Lorenzo Sonego in the fourth round, hasn’t lost a set yet, and he’s the youngest American man to make three Major Round of 16 appearances in a year since Andy Roddick in 2004.
THE MAN WHO CANNOT STOP MAKING RECORDS: Novak Djokovic can’t help setting records. The Serb, is seeking to reach his seventh straight Wimbledon final, win his eighth Wimbledon title and finally break Margaret Court’s record of 24 Slam singles titles. With his win yesterday, Novak joined Roger Federer as the only player with at least 100 wins in two Grand Slams. BTW: Novak does hold the record for most bagels scored in Slams – 51.
A WIMBLEDON ECLIPSE: Everyone knows that sunny days last for just so long in foggy London. For instance, last year the beautifully named Lulu Sun made it to the quarterfinals before Donna Vekic rained on her parade. This year, Sonay Kartal, the young bright light of British tennis, made it to the fourth round. Then there was an eclipse. Kartal lost in straight sets to Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova.
A PROUD SHORT PERSON: Kartal, at 5’ 4”, is the smallest person in the draw. And she threw some shade on the size-ism that’s everywhere. The Brit from Brighton told the BBC, “You’ve got to have different skills in your locker. I’ve obviously not got the long limbs, so I have got to make up for it with speed…I’m a proud short person.”
COLLEGE SPIRIT: Jon Wertheim noted that, “In the men’s draw, there are more former college tennis players than there are players from any single country.”
SOME DARE WHISPER, ‘BRING BACK THE HUMANS:’ There have been issues, big issues, relating to electronic scoring, which Wimbledon adopted this year.
The many on-court cameras need a certain amount of light to operate, so matches have to be called before it’s truly dark. More importantly, many players have been complaining. Today, during the Sonay Kartal-Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova match on Centre Court, there wasn’t a call on a ball that was nearly a foot out. The point was replayed.
THE MIDDLE DIDN’T HOLD AT WIMBLEDON: The world’s greatest tournament always provided a moment of renewal, a glorious respite that made the rest of the tournament seem brighter. There used to be no play on Wimbledon’s middle Sunday. Its silence was loud. It was tennis’ beloved celebration of work-life balance.
Now the grand tradition, which was whacked in 2021, seems like a quaint indulgence where pausing and taking a collective breath was somehow valued as an aid to sanity.
But, of course, commercialism is a juggernaut that can’t be stopped. But we romantics can still have our say. So here’s my remembrance on Middle Sunday.
Mine is a tennis life.
Yet my favorite day of the year has precious little to do with the sport. Every summer for decades, I’d fly to London and immediately immerse myself in frenzied days covering Wimbledon.
Then on the seventh day came Middle Sunday, beloved Middle Sunday, with its embracing stillness: such an oasis of calm, a time of renewal. But I didn’t exactly rest. You see, for me, for 35 years, the greatest part of Middle Sunday was meeting up with my cherished cousins Tim and Jeanne, who are Londoners.
Every year I’d make the hour-long train-and-tube trek across town. Leaving leafy upper-crust Wimbledon with all its proper petunias, I’d venture out to the gritty, bustling Highbury-Islington district, and my cousins’ welcoming townhouse with its enchanting garden – a tranquil haven that always seemed to be blooming with a pastel array of English floral triumphs.
Tim and Jeanne were a jolly, engaging gateway to the wonders of English culture. Each year we’d set off on a soul-renewing adventure. They had an old, very English barge, and, picnic in hand, they’d take me on post-Victorian journeys up the Thames. We’d drift by white swans and riverside homes graced by impeccable lawns and ancient trees.
One year I ventured far to the north to Yorkshire, to join them at their grandson’s high school graduation. From there we navigated through narrow, twisting country lanes lined by hedge groves until at last we emerged at their horse farm, a rustic treasure that had been in the family for generations.
Filled with massive mahogany tables and paintings celebrating past grandeur, the farm offered stunning views of the undulating English countryside, a working stable and a country kitchen to die for. It drew a cadre of friends for chatty meals with good drink and common history references that for hours zoomed far over my head.
Plus, there were endless stretches of magical moors that stirred my soul. Traipsing by sheep and climbing stone walls and fences, in timeless moments here on this fabled windswept island, it was hard not to envision Wuthering Heights and Mr. Shakespeare.
Another year, back in town, we went to a sixteenth-century chapel in the heart of London, where a choir sang Anglican hymns. Rarely, to my ear, has the human voice sounded so splendid.
Sometimes we’d venture to the city of Salisbury, which dates to the eleventh century, and its massive cathedral, or head southeast to Kent for an intimate lunch with folks connected to the British cinema. Other years we’d drive past Stonehenge to Wilton for lunch and an impromptu visit to a betting parlor to back a favored pony.
Other years we’d check out a local tennis tournament or a troupe of nimble circus vagabonds, or just stay put and pick up our ongoing conversation where we’d left off the year before. Our backyard chats intertwined the threads of life and culture that are the essence of the Anglo-American cloth. Also there were regular reminiscences about an eight-person, six-week Mt. Rushmore-or-bust station wagon journey across America that we’d somehow managed to survive when we were kids.
Of course I’d regale my cousins with tales of Wimbledon: pressroom snippets, Tea Room twists and daring interviews with Bill Clinton, Johnny Carson and Billie Jean King. “So what are Serena, Federer and McEnroe really like?” my cousins would ask. They’d delight me with their lilting English and imaginative tennis takes: “Agasino,” said Jeanne, “Oh he’s scruffy. He needs a hair wash and a bath, but he plays with a good sporting instinct. My old aunt is just potty about him. I just hope he doesn’t absolutely twitch off.”
One year, I informed the prickly press handlers at Buckingham Palace that my stepmother had driven an ambulance in London during World War II. Miraculously I soon became the only American journalist credentialed for a tennis exhibition at the palace hosted by Prince Andrew and Fergie and featuring McEnroe and Borg. A bit impressed but rather mortified, my cousins patiently provided me with a don’t-you-dare-screw-up primer on royal etiquette and how Americans might somehow avoid disaster when mingling with, as the Brits say, “the good and great.”
Every Middle Sunday, Tim, Jeanne and I renewed our special family friendship – our deep bond – and set off on adventures in a kingdom with countless marvels.
Oh, how I will miss Middle Sunday.
Also Reporting: Lucia Hoffman
