Aussie men break unwelcome ground
One day shy of the 30th anniversary since Pat Cash stood triumphant on the lawns of the All England Club, it was a bleak day for Australian men’s tennis. Thanasi Kokkinakis showed glimpses of brilliance in pushing fellow comeback maestro Juan Martin del Potro in a high-quality four-set display, while Jordan Thompson – only a week after stunning Andy Murray in the opening round at Queen’s – fell to No.25 seed Albert Ramos-Vinolas. No shame in either defeat. But when former quarter-finalist Bernard Tomic made a meek exit against No.27 seed Mischa Zverev it marked the first time Australia would not have a man through to the second round of the singles.
“Now it's a rollercoaster, and I just can't seem to find, like, the commitment to work hard, to enjoy, and to lift trophies,” Tomic said. “To me right now, I'm just not super pleased, not happy with myself.
“This is my eighth Wimbledon or ninth I think. I'm still 24, and it's tough to find motivation, you know. Really, me being out there on the court, to be honest with you, I just couldn't find any motivation.”
Vandeweghe struggling with Cash's generation game
Speaking of Cash, the Australian has a new role at The Championships in 2017: coach. Cash is now working with No.24 seed Coco Vandeweghe, overseeing her in a Grand Slam setting for the first time in the intimate confines of Court 18. While there’s plenty to like about the logic of the match-up, with Cash’s swashbuckling serve-volley mentality gelling with Vandeweghe’s first-strike tennis, off court the 27-year-age gap has thrown up some confusing conversations for the American.
“Well, he's introduced me to a lot of ’80s rock bands, which before I wasn't quite familiar with,” Vandeweghe, 25, said, after beating Mona Barthel 7-5, 6-2. “I keep having to remind him I was born in ’91.
“I would say he's actually on the side of dorky a little bit sometimes. I mean, he's just -- it's a different generation. So for me, it's like sometimes the things that he says are like references he goes to, it's like, ‘Dude, that's a dorky reference.’ It's a fun, jovial light he has to himself.”
Stephens swaps TV gig for tennis shoes
She may not have notched the win but it was a victory of sorts for former world No.11 Sloane Stephens, who played her first match since losing in the opening round of last year’s Rio Olympics in August. In an all-American clash on the very American Fourth of July, the 24-year-old fell in straight sets to countrywoman Alison Riske. Stephens had an operation for a stress fracture in her foot in February and revealed she passed the time getting used to a ‘peg leg’ and working in television with Tennis Channel.
“Some days I was just like didn't want to leave the house because I was like, this is just too much. Get the peg leg on and go to the mall,” she said.
“But I tried, and I got out of the house. I did The Tennis Channel stuff. I tried to stay as active as I could. It was really fun. Like I said, I was on a peg leg and I had nothing to do, and it was a great opportunity to stay involved in tennis and actually, like, see people I enjoy, like Paul Annacone and Lindsay Davenport, Tracy Austin. I got to wake up and hang out with them for like a month straight. It was not bad.”
Zverev brothers
There’s no denying Alexander Zverev is the most-hyped 20-year-old in the men’s game right now but it’s his late-blooming brother Mischa who has broken through first to reach a Grand Slam quarter-final after stunning Murray in the fourth round of this year’s Australian Open. Now the Zverevs are the first seeded brothers to reach the second round in singles at Wimbledon since Gene and Sandy Mayer reached the third round in 1982. Mischa, 29, will look to reach the third round at the All England Club for the first time since 2008. In the dying art of serve-volley tennis, he shed some light on the throwback style, which once dominated Wimbledon’s lawns.
“It’s like flipping the coin every day 365 days a year: you have to flip a coin 200 times a day and then hopefully you win the majority of those coin tosses,” Mischa said. “To me, that’s how it is when you serve and volley, because you never know what’s going to happen, and the point is going to be over in a split second.”
Russian revolution on the cards
The conveyor belt of tennis prodigies from the might of Russia shows no signs of easing in the women’s game. But not since former world No.1s and dual Grand Slam champions Yevgeny Kafelnikov and Marat Safin were at the height of their powers has the powerhouse nation’s stocks in the men’s game looked quite as promising. With 19-year-old Andrey Rublev winning his first five-set match to reach the second round it meant three from three Russian young guns had advanced after Daniil Medvedev’s Day 1 upset of Stan Wawrinka and Karen Khachanov’s five-set triumph over Andrey Kuznetsov.
“Of course I’m very happy to win my first match here, but I don’t think of it as anything particularly special,” the 95th-ranked Rublev said. “There are plenty of other guys who have won more matches than me. I have to work harder.”
