Wimbledon recap: Aryna Sabalenka and Madison Keys become women's favorites in top half

New York Times

11 hours ago

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Welcome to the Wimbledon briefing, where The Athletic will explain the stories behind the stories on each day of the tournament.
On day three, the top half of the women's draw went down to two seeds, the rain did nothing to deter the Wimbledon queue and an American master of the serve survived again.
Top-10 seeds in the top half of the women's draw, that is.
This has been a tournament of upsets, but this section of the women's draw has been particularly hard hit. It had already lost No. 5 seed Zheng Qinwen and No. 9 seed Paula Badosa before Jasmine Paolini, last year's beaten finalist, lost her second-round match to Kamila Rakhimova of Russia, the world No. 80.
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It leaves the No. 1 seed Aryna Sabalenka and No. 6 seed Madison Keys as the remaining big hitters in the top half, where plenty of other seeds have fallen as well.
After beating Olga Danilović to buck the trend, Keys admitted that seeing so many seeds go out 'adds a little bit of stress to the situation.'
Honestly, I think everyone is just kind of tired, and the season has been long already. I feel like we've all played a lot of matches. So obviously the people that are ranked higher, in theory, have played more matches than others,' she said.
Sabalenka took the opposite track after beating Marie Bouzková. 'I'm just trying to focus on myself,' she said.
She and Keys are slated to meet in the quarterfinals, though who would predict anything based on seedings at this tournament anymore. A tournament which started with 64 seeds across the men's and women's draws has now lost 31 of them, 23 in the first round and eight thus far in the second.
Charlie Eccleshare
Courtney Wills and her mom are on holiday from Timaru, New Zealand. They arrived in the reserve queue at 10:30 p.m. Wednesday morning, hoping to get into Wimbledon as latecomers to the long line of tennis fans, many of whom camp overnight to secure tickets.
'We were meant to come tomorrow but we woke up this morning and thought let's try today,' Courtney said. Their spontaneity saved them from the bulk of the downpour that arrived earlier that morning, which left a lot of people in Wimbledon Park soaked through.
'The steward told us to go over to the left luggage as there's all tents which people had left behind so we grabbed a pop-up tent when it was raining,' the 32-year-old said, adding that they were were content queueing for as many hours as it would take, even though there was a risk that they would not get in.
During an interview, they met another woman from Timaru, a city on New Zealand's South Island with a population under 50,000, by chance in the queue. Wimbledon brings people together and the queuing experience is one people keep coming back to whatever the weather.
Sam Henson and Dave James from Dover have been joining the queue for the past 15 years. They arrived at 10 p.m. Tuesday night, to ensure seeing British men's No. 1 Jack Draper's match with Marin Čilić Thursday.
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'We've had times where the weather has been absolutely gorgeous and there's been times when it's been awful,' Henson, a National Health Service worker, said, adding that rain can put off some less hardy queuers. 'Particularly if you were going in on a grounds ticket, because you would be soaking wet and then you've got to sit there,' he said.
Tamsin and Alan Tabram were standing, rather than sitting near Court 4, as they waited to see British men's duo Dan Evans and Henry Searle in their doubles opener. The couple from Bath joined the queue at 7 a.m. and had dried off by 2 p.m. 'It's just British weather, one extreme to the other,' Tamsin said while putting sun cream on and getting momentarily harassed by a bee.
'It was pretty miserable up there but not too bad,' Alan said, still ruing their half-broken umbrella.
Caoimhe O'Neill
No. 5 seed Taylor Fritz had to go to the well for a second consecutive match, on a third consecutive day, and once again he came up with a full bucket of water.
At 10:20 p.m. Wednesday night, nearly 48 hours to the minute after tournament officials stopped his momentum against French fireballer Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard, Fritz got over the line against another master of the serve.
The delayed win against Mpetshi Perricard had earned him a duel against Gabriel Diallo, the rising Canadian who has the touch and the groundstrokes to do damage to every top player in the draw. It began after 7 p.m., putting it in danger of Wimbledon's 11 p.m. curfew. Given the players involved, there didn't figure to be many breaks of serve. Tiebreaks seemed on the agenda.
In the end there was just one, and when it was over, Fritz looked on the way to a comparably stress-free night. He didn't have to climb back from a 1-5 deficit in the third of three tiebreaks to stay alive, like he had done against Mpetshi Perricard. This match had just one tiebreak, and Fritz won it 7-0 to go up two sets to one. But he did have to win another fifth set.
He beat Diallo 3-6, 6-3, 7-6(0), 4-6, 6-3. He bloodied his elbow diving after one ball, having executed a picture-perfect diving volley a few games before. But it was all worth it for what he gets now: a day off.
Fritz played four matches in five days in winning Eastbourne coming into Wimbledon. Then he had to be on court in each of the first three days of the third major of the year, playing arguably the most stressful form of tennis there is, where a couple loose serves in a row can doom a player.
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Now, though, he's in the last 32 and the highest seed standing in his quarter, with Alexander Zverev going out in the first round.
Matt Futterman
Actually the shot of day two, but some lax highlights uploads shouldn't deter anyone from Corentin Moutet opening his box of tricks.
Men's singles: Daniel Evans vs. Novak Djokovic (6)
8:30 a.m. ET on ESPN/ESPN+
Djokovic didn't look 100 percent in his first-round win, but he did have the crowd behind him. That won't be the case tomorrow when he takes on 35-year-old Brit Daniel Evans, fresh off his first Wimbledon win in four years.
Women's singles: Maria Sakkari vs. Elena Rybakina (11)
9 a.m. ET on ESPN/ESPN+
With so many seeds out, 2022 champion Rybakina is one of the favorites by dint of pedigree, let alone her rocket serve and easy, powerful groundstrokes. But Sakkari is a former top-five player trying to rediscover her best tennis self. Who would bet against another upset?
Tell us what you noticed on the third day…
(Top photo of Aryna Sabalenka: Getty Images; design: Eamonn Dalton / The Athletic)