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A few hours is a long time in tennis.
At 5pm, Sam Querrey was all head-shaking disbelief in the moments immediately after his shock victory over Novak Djokovic in the third round of Wimbledon 2016; but duty called, and he had a first round doubles match to play out on the somewhat unglamorous Court 17 before he could share his thoughts any further. It was gone 8.30pm by the time he and Steve Johnson lost 7-6(4), 6-3 to the No.14 seeds Radek Stepanek and Nenad Zimonjic, and an hour after that before the American finally reflected on his extraordinary achievement. And by then, the world No.41 had got his head around the unbelievable truth – he really had halted Djokovic’s 30-match Grand Slam winning streak.
“Yes, the best win of my career,” he conceded, but declining to agree it was “career-defining”.
Instead he said: “I'm not going to lie and say going into it I thought I was going to win. But as the match progressed, I gained a little more confidence with every game. I played a great tiebreaker. Once I won that, I was in my head, ‘All right, I can beat this guy, I can hang with him and turn this into a match’.
“Then today I lost the first four games and thought ‘this is going the wrong way quickly’. Made a couple of adjustments in the rain delay. I actually felt pretty level-headed and steady the whole time. What makes him so good is he wins those matches where he isn't playing his best. Definitely in the second set, he wasn't playing like he usually does. Then today he made me earn it. Probably not the best he's ever played, but not the worst he's ever played.
Novak and his whole team couldn't have been nicer
“Everyone in the locker room has been so kind. Great job, well done. Novak and his whole team couldn't have been nicer. Everyone was happy for me and gave me some type of high five or congrats.”
Ask those who know Querrey what he’s like, and the same words tend to crop up. Steve Johnson (who himself had a great, simultaneous win over Grigor Dimitrov, to set up a last 16 meeting with Roger Federer) describes his doubles wingman as “happy-go-lucky”. Another great friend, John Isner, repeats that phrase, calling him “just a goofy, happy-go-lucky guy – about as carefree in a good way as a guy can be”. Isner saw Querrey in the locker room on Friday evening, after the Djokovic match had been paused overnight with Querrey two sets up. Was he frustrated that his momentum had been halted? Was he worried that he might not be able to finish the job?
“He was laughing,” reported Isner. Madison Keys, too, is a big fan of the 28-year-old Las Vegas resident, describing her friend as “so much fun – a really down-to-earth, funny, relaxed guy”. You get the picture. But actually Querrey admits that his easy-going nature does not always work in his competitive favour.
“I'm sure there have been times where I've been much too casual and relaxed and I've lost a lot of matches,” he conceded. “When I'm out there, I'm intense. I get nervous, I get an adrenaline rush. Might show it different than others. In a high‑stress moment I might look relaxed, but I am feeling it inside. But, yeah, it's probably hurt me in the past.”
...so much fun – a really down-to-earth, funny, relaxed guy
Last year Querrey even appeared on a cable TV reality show in the Unites States called Millionaire Matchmaker, where a theoretical dating expert set him up with a woman judged to be his ideal match. (“I was sort of peer-pressured into doing it, and I was nervous before it came out because I thought it would be embarrassing, but it wasn’t that bad,” he said afterwards. For those dying to know the outcome, his date turned out not be the love of his life, and he is now happily dating model Abby Dixon.)
Back in the world of tennis, Querrey faces Nicolas Mahut in the last 16, whom he describes as the kind of player no one wants to face on grass. The fourth round is as far as Querrey has ever progressed in any Slam (his highest ranking was No.17 at the start of 2011), a statistic he intends to overturn here.
“This has been exciting,” he said, already consigning the Djokovic win to the past tense as he looked ahead. “It's been a surreal day. It's been exciting. But this wasn't the final. There's a lot of tennis left to be played. I want to win that next match and make a Grand Slam quarter-final.”
