Saturday 3rd July 2021
It’s going well at Wimbledon
Kerber’s rain comeback, Zverev’s fight
Anqelique Kerber threatens to end in the third round at Wimbledon. You don’t want to succeed. Then the rain comes. She wins. Alexander Zverev also made it into the round of 16. He has to fight.
With the bad English weather, the turn for the better came for Angelique Kerber, Alexander Zverev made his comeback without help from above. The two top German players fought their way into the last sixteen at Wimbledon after a set deficit, especially Kerber showed an enormous increase. After a break in the rain, the 2018 winner looked like a different person, embodied pure dominance – and is increasingly positioning herself as a title contender.
“I really had a false start. It was good that it rained,” said the three-time Grand Slam winner after the 2: 6, 6: 0, 6: 1 against Alexandra Sasnowitsch from Belarus with a laugh: “It was for me The key was that I pushed myself and played aggressively after getting back on the pitch. I just wanted to start from scratch and not think about the result. “
The world number six, Zverev, initially had significantly more problems in the duel between two good servers against the American Taylor Fritz than in his two easy wins at the start. In the end, the Hamburg man solved this problem with 6: 7 (3: 7), 6: 4, 6: 3, 7: 6 (7: 4) and meets the Canadian world number 19 on “Manic Monday”. Felix Auger-Aliassime, whose third-round opponent Nick Kyrgios had to give up injured after two sets.
Does fire now follow rain?
The 33-year-old Kerber, on the other hand, has to deal with young US hopefuls Cori Gauff, who has also been very strong so far. “I see the fire in her,” said Kerber about the 17-year-old, who is five places ahead of her in the ranking: “I know it will be a tough match.” But the form at Kerber is right, after winning the tournament at the dress rehearsal in Bad Homburg, she is now in a row with eight successes on grass.
However, Kerber was caught off guard, Sasnowitsch presented her with great problems with her brisk game. The Kiel woman gave up her first two service games directly and fell 4-0 down. Kerber acted almost entirely on the defensive, her brave opponent, however, hardly made any mistakes.
Sasnovich looked much fresher than the German, who had defeated the Spaniard Sara Sorribes in almost three and a half hours on Thursday. At the score of 1: 5, however, the rain ensured that Kerber was able to rearrange himself during the one and a half hour break. After that she showed a completely different body language, seemed much more grippy and forced Sasnowitsch to make mistakes with more power. The Belarusian was visibly impressed and had no chance against this dominance.
Zverev has to fight briefly
Zverev had to fight much more against Fritz, there were only few chances for the return players. First of all, the American, who a month ago at the French Open still in a wheelchair and then had to undergo meniscus surgery on his right knee, was the more active player and earned the first set in the tiebreaker.
But Zverev then increased the pressure from the baseline and also looked more often for the way to the network. With his own serve, the US Open finalist didn’t make any wobbles anyway – two break opportunities in the fifth game of the second set were the only ones for Fritz in the entire match. In the fourth set, the tie-break had to decide again – this time with the better end after 2:37 hours for Zverev.
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