Wimbledon briefing: Monday recap, day nine order of play and ‘nightmare' Norrie
The quarter-finals begin on Tuesday, with women's world number one Aryna Sabalenka opening play on Centre Court before Britain's last remaining singles hope Cameron Norrie tackles defending men's champion Carlos Alcaraz.
Here, the PA news agency looks back at Monday's action and previews day nine of the Championships.
Djokovic wakes up to down De Minaur
Novak Djokovic recovered from his worst first set at Wimbledon to battle past Alex De Minaur in four sets and reach a 16th quarter-final in SW19.
The seven-time champion made 16 unforced errors, including four double faults, and dropped serve three times as he lost the first set 6-1.
Bu the Serbian remains on a semi-final collision course with Jannik Sinner, who appeared to be heading for an early exit before Grigor Dimitrov suffered a heartbreaking injury.
The 34-year-old Bulgarian was two sets up and playing some inspired tennis when, at 2-2 in the third set, he clutched his chest after serving an ace and was forced to retire injured.
World number one Sinner, who helped Dimitrov pack his rackets away and carried his bag off court, said: 'I don't take this as a win at all. This is just a very unfortunate moment to witness for all of us.'
In the zone
Mirra Andreeva was so focused on continually winning the next point that she did not realise she had won.
The 18-year-old Russian swatted aside Emma Navarro in straight sets to reach her first Wimbledon quarter-final.
But, in front of her hero Roger Federer, she was oblivious to the fact the umpire was announcing her as the winner.
'I kept telling myself I'm not the one who is up on the score, I am the one who is down,' she explained. 'That helped me to stay focused and in the end I completely forgot the score.
'I'm happy that I did it because I think I would have been three times more nervous on a match point.'
AI here to stay
Wimbledon bosses are 'deeply disappointed' by Sunday's electronic line calling failure but insist it will not happen again.
All England Club chief executive Sally Bolton said: 'We did a full review of all of our systems and processes to check all of those kinds of things and to make sure that, both historically and moving forward, we have made the appropriate changes that we needed to make. So we're absolutely confident in the system.'
Organisers later clarified the changes that have been made, with a spokesman saying: 'Following our review, we have removed the ability for Hawk-Eye operators to manually deactivate the ball tracking. This error cannot now be repeated.'
Match of the day
Cameron Norrie faces the ultimate Wimbledon challenge as he aims to dethrone defending champion Carlos Alcaraz.
The British number three is through to the quarter-finals for the first time since he reached the last four in 2022, which was the last time Spanish superstar Alcaraz lost a match in SW19.
Since then Norrie has dropped from eight in the world to a low of 91 while Alcaraz, 22, has won two Wimbledons, two French Opens and a US Open.
But Alcaraz is taking nothing for granted, insisting facing Norrie on home soil is 'almost a nightmare'.
Order of play
Court One (from 1pm) Taylor Fritz (5) v Karen Khachanov (17)Amanda Anisimova (13) v Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova
Weather watch
Sunny with highs of 25C, according to the Met Office.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Guardian
16 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Wimbledon's electronic line-calling woes continue as boos greet latest malfunction
Wimbledon was forced to explain yet another issue with the live electronic line-calling system on Tuesday after it malfunctioned again, only a day after it had expressed confidence that the problems that led to an embarrassing error on Sunday had been fixed. The latest incident occurred in the quarter-final between Taylor Fritz and Karen Khachanov. Serving at 0-15 in the opening game of the fourth set, Fritz missed his first serve, which was correctly called out. He then landed his second serve but when he hit his next forehand, which landed around four feet in, the automated system called 'fault', thinking it was a serve. The second serve had not been registered by the speed gun and the umpire, Louise Azemar-Engzell, was quickly on the phone to the control room. 'Ladies and gentleman, we will be replaying the last point due to a malfunction. The system is now working,' she said, to a smattering of boos from the crowd on No 1 Court. A Wimbledon spokesperson said the mistake had occurred because the ballboy was still on court when Fritz started his serve. 'The player's service motion began while the [boy] was still crossing the net and therefore the system didn't recognise the start of the point. As such the chair umpire instructed the point be replayed.' Wimbledon replaced line judges with automated live-calling this year and the incident on Tuesday is the latest in a string of issues, which peaked on Sunday when the system failed to call a backhand by Britain's Sonay Kartal that landed clearly long, which should have given Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova a 5-4 lead in the first set. At the time, the Russian accused the tournament of home bias but her anger abated as she went on to win the match. Tournament organisers said the technology had been turned off by mistake on that section of the court. Subsequently they 'removed the ability for Hawk-Eye operators to manually deactivate the ball tracking'. Khachanov said afterwards that he preferred having human line judges. '[The question] is why this is happening,' he said. 'Is it just like error of the machine or what's the reason? Sometimes it's scary to let machine do what they want.' Sign up to The Recap The best of our sports journalism from the past seven days and a heads-up on the weekend's action after newsletter promotion Fritz, however, preferred the automated system. 'In that situation it helped me because I got a first serve out of it,' he said. 'There's going to be some issues here and there. To be honest, I still think it's much better to just have the electronic line calling as opposed to the umpires because I do like not having to think about challenging calls in the middle of points. I think it's a better system.'
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Stamina, skills and hunger: how do England solve a problem like Shubman Gill?
Two games into the series we have already witnessed something very special from Shubman Gill. In the second Test at Edgbaston he produced a real rarity: an individual performance that defines and dominates a game. Not just piling on the runs, but forcing his opponents to toil in the field until they felt exhausted and out of options. That fatigue affects batters' mental clarity and their decision-making – what to play, when to leave – as well as their movement and their footwork. Reducing England to 25 for three at the end of the second day went a long way to deciding the match. As well as India bowled with the new ball, it was Gill's remorselessness that created the conditions for it to happen. We have to pay testament to his stamina, his skill and his hunger – not just for runs, but to set an example as the new captain of a young team. Captaincy can affect a player's form detrimentally, but it seems to have focused him and his three highest Test scores have been made in the past three weeks. We are coming to the end of a period that has been dominated by the so-called Fab Four – Virat Kohli, Joe Root, Steve Smith and Kane Williamson – and the search has been on for players who can take over. Gill has shown he can fill those boots and in a wonderfully orthodox style: he plays all formats and is brilliantly adaptable, but with a foundation of classic technique. He has not just been making his own reputation, he is making history. No touring player has scored as many runs in a Test as the 430 at Edgbaston – only Graham Gooch against India at Lord's, in 1990, has bettered it – and his 585 puts him 23rd on the list of highest individual tallies in Test series in England, two games in. Even Don Bradman's world record of 974 in the 1930 Ashes looks under threat. He was given the opportunity to dictate the game because England chose to bowl first. The opportunity to stretch and tire opponents and then benefit from scoreboard pressure and fatigue, as well as the opportunity to bowl on a possibly deteriorating pitch towards the end of the game, is why people win the toss and bat. England will be reflecting on that decision as they consider ways of reducing Gill's impact on the remainder of the series. I remember Smith's performances on the Ashes tour I went on as batting coach in 2017-18, when he scored two unbeaten centuries and a double century, ending the series with an average of 137.40. At times it felt like we just could not get him out, it was soul-destroying. He always seemed to have an answer. After a while it really does get to you and we had two very experienced frontline bowlers in Jimmy Anderson and Stuart Broad. Gill is used to the cast of bowlers England used in the first two matches, he knows their plans, their trajectories, their variations, their pace. If fatigue was not already going to force Ben Stokes to change his bowling group, the need to find fresh ways to challenge the India captain would have done it anyway. If Chris Woakes can put himself through a third match in a row I would keep him in, because his batting could play a part. He bowled a good new-ball spell on the first day at Edgbaston when he was a bit unlucky and Lord's is a happy hunting ground for him. Sign up to The Spin Subscribe to our cricket newsletter for our writers' thoughts on the biggest stories and a review of the week's action after newsletter promotion Brydon Carse and Josh Tongue have been selected because they bowl with good pace, height and bounce and can present problems even on flat surfaces. They have done OK, but they have come up against top-class batting that has been ruthless – Stokes doesn't like that word but India probably do. Now England need a point of difference: it's going to be 30C in London, probably not great conditions for swing, and Jofra Archer has to be the man. But picking Archer, after one first-class game in four years, is a risk and with Stokes also needing to bowl in short bursts England then need a couple of people who can really put in a shift. What surprises me about their squad, aside from the three seamers who played the first two games, is the extraordinary lack of first-class overs in it: Gus Atkinson has come back in for the third Test having not played since the game against Zimbabwe in May and joins Jamie Overton, who would add extra depth to England's batting but has played one T20 game since May and one first-class match this season. To pick either of them alongside Archer feels like a risk, particularly when it is going to be hot and dry and England have to be braced for long periods in the field. For that reason Sam Cook has to come in, though he is someone who offers control, plenty of stamina and lots of overs, but not always a cutting edge. Cook may struggle at Old Trafford and the Oval given the nature of the pitches and this could be the one where he uses the slope cleverly and bowls lots of overs. Woakes and Cook can then provide control with Archer the ace up England's sleeve, someone fresh and fast, and something new for Gill to try to deal with.
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Fritz defies Khachanov fightback and line-call blooper to reach Wimbledon last four
Taylor Fritz survived a mid‑match dip, a bold fightback from his opponent and even another line‑calling malfunction as he beat Karen Khachanov 6-3, 6-4, 1-6, 7-6 (4) on Tuesday to reach the semi-finals at Wimbledon for the first time. The American coasted through the first two sets with some imperious serving, not facing a single break point, only to dip markedly in the third to allow Khachanov back into the match. However, after falling a break behind early in the fourth set, the No 5 seed rediscovered his focus and played a near flawless tie-break to advance to a clash with the defending champion, Carlos Alcaraz. 'It's an amazing feeling,' said Fritz, who hit 16 aces. 'Having played the quarter-finals here twice and lost in five [sets] twice, I don't think I could have taken another one. I'm really happy I'm going to get to play the semis here. I'm feeling great to get through it. The match was going so well for me for two sets, I've never really had a match just flip so quickly, so I'm really happy how I came back in the fourth set and got it done. I think momentum was not going to be on my side in the fifth.' Another malfunction in the electronic line-calling system occurred at the start of the fourth set, when a forehand from Khachanov, which landed four feet inside the baseline, was called 'fault'. The umpire, Louise Azemar-Engzell, stopped the point, got on the phone to reset the system and the point was replayed. Fritz ended up being broken as Khachanov moved ahead. However, the American broke back for 2-2 and from then on the two men raised the level and began to play outstanding tennis. The Russian held serve at 5-5 from 0-30, thanks to a brilliant lunging volley. Fritz was impregnable on serve again, though, and in the tie-break he began with a 138mph ace, hit two more and finished it off with a smash into the open court. Four years ago, after he lost against Alexander Zverev here in the third round, Fritz wrote a note on his girlfriend's phone, saying: 'Nobody in the whole world is underachieving harder than you, you are so good but 40 in the world, get your shit together.' Now, he is in the top five, reached his first grand slam final at the US Open last year and is one match away from a first Wimbledon final. 'At the time, my ranking was slipping,' he said. 'I was coming back from a surgery and I felt like I was not playing to the level I felt like I should be playing. That note was never supposed to be public. I was ranting to my girlfriend about it, she said: 'Write it down, look at it.' I'm really happy with how I've turned my career around over the last four years or so. I've put in a lot of work and it's good to see the results.' Standing between Fritz and a first Wimbledon final is Alcaraz, who ended British interest with an impressive victory against Cameron Norrie. The pair have played each other twice, both on hard courts, with Alcaraz winning both times. The Spaniard has won the title in each of the past two years here but Fritz believes that if he can find his level, he has a fighting chance. 'I'm happy that we're not playing at the French Open on clay with the French Open balls because that would be an absolute nightmare,' he said, laughing. 'I think grass is very much so an equaliser. So, trust in how I'm playing. I truly know the way that I played the first two sets today, there's not much any opponent on the other side can do.' And as an American, Fritz says he has already experienced the most pressure he is ever likely to face, when beating Frances Tiafoe to reach the US Open final last year. 'It's given me a lot of confidence in those moments and situations, just having been there, that I can do it again,' Fritz said. 'I've played the pressure matches. I don't think anything's going to get more stressful than me playing Frances in New York for a spot in the final.'
