Unbeaten in eight games: After the rain, Kerber is incredible


Unbeaten in eight games
After the rain, Kerber is amazing

Anqelique Kerber threatens to end in the third round at Wimbledon. You don’t want to succeed. Then the rain comes. Everything changes. The German plays in the circle of the title favorites.

The bad English weather turned things around for the better: Angelique Kerber, who played like a substitute after a rain break, reached the round of 16 at Wimbledon. The 2018 winner initially struggled in the third round match against Alexandra Sasnowitsch from Belarus. After the break of over an hour and a half, Kerber embodied pure dominance, winning 2: 6, 6: 0, 6: 1 – and getting more and more into position as a title contender.

On “Manic Monday”, the German will face 17-year-old US hopefuls Cori Gauff, who has also presented herself very well so far. After winning the tournament at the dress rehearsal in Bad Homburg, Kerber is now on grass with eight wins in a row. Since many of the favorites failed early on, the field for the Kiel woman is wide open. In addition, Kerber is the only remaining Wimbledon winner in the tournament.

The hard-fought second round win on Thursday against the Spaniard Sara Sorribes, in which Kerber showed almost three and a half hours of top-quality high-speed tennis and her best match since winning Wimbledon in 2018, gave her courage. “I can still do it,” said Kerber proudly and relieved: “This match gives me confidence again.”

Until the rain under the cold shower

But she was caught off guard. With her research and risky game, Sasnowitsch, who had benefited from the injury-related abandonment of US superstar Serena Williams in the first round, presented Kerber with major problems. 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.

Sasnowitsch, ranked 72 places behind Kerber as 100th in the world rankings, looked much fresher than the German. When the score was 1: 5, however, the rain ensured that the players had to leave the field – and gave Kerber the chance to rearrange himself during the one and a half hour break. Although the first round could no longer be saved, Kerber now showed a completely different body language.

She seemed much more handy in the second round, forced Sasnowitsch to make mistakes with more power and better returns and gave her the maximum penalty with the 6-0. The Belarusian was visibly impressed and had no chance against Kerber’s dominance in the third set either. After 75 minutes, the German number one transformed the first match ball.

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