Novak Djokovic has been waiting. He waited for Nick Kyrgios to lose focus and lose his way. Waiting to find the right reading for his opponent’s big serves. Wait until your own level rises to this occasion.
Djokovic doesn’t mind the deficit – in one game, one set, one match. He is not afraid to solve problems. And at Wimbledon, it’s been quite a while since he’s been beaten.
Djokovic used his steady brilliance to beat ace serves, fooling, consistently beating Kyrgios 4-6, 6-3, 6-4, 7-6 (3) on Sunday to win the fourth consecutive Wimbledon title and seventh overall. .
Top seed Djokovic went on an undefeated streak at the grass-court Grand Slam to 28 matches and lifted his career path to 21 major titles, breaking the record with Roger Federer and only 22 matches behind Rafael Nadal in the tournament. history. of men’s tennis.
Of the men, only Federer, with 8, has won more titles at Wimbledon than Djokovic. In the professional era, only Federer was older (less than a year) than the 35-year-old Djokovic when he won the All England Club.
This return on a sunny afternoon followed the quarter-final matches, when Djokovic equaled two sets against 10th seed Jannik Sinner, and in the semifinals, when 9th player Cam Norrie took the set. Opening. In last year’s title match at Wimbledon, Djokovic dropped the opening set. In the 2019 final, he cleared two championship points against Federer.
There are two particularly important moments on Sunday, moments Kyrgios won’t miss as he begins to engage in monologues, shouting at himself or his entourage (not including his coach). full time), received a warning for swearing, found excuses to disagree with the referee’s chair he slammed his hand in before the game, and squeezed a water bottle.
In the second set, when Djokovic served 5-3, Kyrgios got his love-40 – a trio of break points. But Kyrgios played a few occasional returns, and Djokovic ended up holding a draw.
When that set was over, Kyrgios waved reluctantly towards his box, sat down and dropped his racquet on the court, then laughed, not to mention anyone in particular: “It’s love-40! It can be big! more than that?! is it enough for you?!”
And then, in the third set, with Kyrgios serving at 4 in all, 40 loves, he let a seemingly closed match slip away, with Djokovic breaking serve there.
40th-ranked Kyrgios is trying to become the first men’s champion at Wimbledon since Goran Ivanisevic in 2001. Ivanisevic is now Djokovic’s coach and is in the Center’s away area for the match.
Kyrgios, the 27-year-old Australian, has never made it past the quarterfinals in his previous 29 Grand Slam appearances – and the last he reached so far was seven and a half years ago.
In a way, he stole the show on Sunday. He tried mid-foot shots, hit some back-to-back shots into the net, smashed serves at up to 136 mph and produced 30 balls. He uses an underarm serve, then fakes one later.
For all key records and other facts logged in the 560-page Wimbledon Compendium – including categories like “ambidextrous player” or “glasses second-place finalist” – not to mention “last gentleman’s underarm serves,” but it seems safe to say it was the first.
Perhaps, in a way, it would be fitting for such a unique player to become a champion at such a unique Wimbledon.
All players representing Russia or Belarus have been banned by the All England Club because of the war in Ukraine; Among the men standing outside were Daniil Medvedev, the defending US Open champion, and No. 8 Andrey Rublev. In response, the professional tennis tournaments WTA and ATP took the unprecedented step of withdrawing all ranking points from Wimbledon.
A woman who was born in Russia but has represented Kazakhstan for four years, Elena Rybakina, won the women’s championship on Saturday with a 3-6, 6-2, 6-2 victory over Ons Jabeur. This was the first Wimbledon title match since 1962 between two women making their Grand Slam final debut and Rybakina, in 23rd place, is the second female champion at the All England Club since the machine rankings. WTA calculation started in 1975.
There’s more: Federer missed the tournament for the first time since the late 1990s as he is still recovering from a series of surgeries on his right knee. Second place in the standings, Alexander Zverev, is sidelined after tearing his ankle ligament at the French Open. Three of the top 20 seeded players, including 2021 runner-up Matteo Berrettini, withdrew from Wimbledon after the tournament began because they tested positive for COVID-19.
And Nadal withdrew before he was supposed to face Kyrgios in the semi-finals, the first time since 1931 that a man has come back from Wimbledon in a semi-final or final.
As for Kyrgios, his talent is unmistakable. But over the years, he has come to be noticed more for his style preferences than for substance on the court, his short temper that has earned him disqualifications and suspensions, as well as his penchant for with nightlife.
In the past two weeks alone, Kyrgios has received $14,000 in fines — one for spitting on a disgusted spectator after his first-round win, another for swearing during a wildly controversial win over the county. like No. 4 Stefanos Tsitsipas in the third round – and was caught failing for wearing a red hat and sneakers before or after matches at the mandatory all-white venue. He and the world also know that he will have to go to court in Australia to face an assault charge.
