Federer, Serena and Venus Williams Reach Third Round, No. 2 Seed Wozniacki Loses at Wimbledon
(July 4, 2018) The women’s draw at Wimbledon lost its fifth top 8 seed on Wednesday when No. 2 Caroline Wozniacki lost Ekaterina Makarova and a swarm of flying ants on Court 1, while former champions Roger Federer, Serena and Venus Williams reached the third round.
Australian Open winner Wozniacki, who has never reached the quarterfinals at the All-England Club lost to the Russian 6-4, 1-6, 7-5. Wozniacki was trailing 5-1 in the third when she staged a comeback to get back on serve and level the set at 5-5. Her comeback fell short.
The Dane was not happy speaking to media after her loss:
“I think I did everything I could. I fought as hard as I could. I can’t even be mad at myself because I played up to the level that I can.
“I think she played above her level and really raised it and got a little lucky and played well when she needed to.”
“I lost today. It’s obviously not the way I wanted the day to go. I played someone who, you know, went all in with every single shot. In the second set, I think that showed to me that that was in my head, how I wanted it to go. Then she started again hitting a lot of lines, a lot of crazy shots that were going in. She was playing well.
“At that point, what can you do? You just have to keep fighting, wait for your opportunity. I fought all I had. I just lacked just a little bit today.”
“Today I played someone who played extremely well. As I said, I don’t know that she would be able to keep up this level for the rest of the tournament.”
Makarova, told of Wozniacki’s comments, had her own retort:
“Maybe I was lucky today. Good for me.”
“I think for me it was a very good game today. We played at the US Open second round and I beat her there for the first time after 7 losses. This day and a half I tried to replay that match and find what was working for me. It worked for me again today, these shots I played.”
Roger Federer and Serena Williams sailed into the third round. Defending champion and eight-time winner Federer won 35 straight points on his serve in defeating Lukas Lacko of Slovakia 6-4, 6-4, 6-1. He has now won 26 straight set at Wimbledon dating back to last year.
“I mean, it’s on certain days it goes better than others,” the Swiss said of his serving. “Sometimes your serve matches up better against certain players. There’s no doubt about that, as well.
“I think important is when you want to serve well is your point-for-point mentality, saying maybe the first point is as important as a breakpoint, so the concentration is the same. Trying to remember all the things you’ve done throughout the entire match, what has worked, what hasn’t worked.
“I don’t need that much time, especially after a short previous rally to go through all of that. Just reassess everything very quickly. I think I can do that very good. Then it’s more than just serving. It’s also first-strike tennis, serve and first shot, serve and taking the right decisions as you go along, in the rallies as well.
“As the match went on, I was able to do that better and better. I guess you’re referring to it. That’s how it felt anyway. I don’t know the statistics. Second and third set, that worked out very well. I think I took the right decisions, as well, from that first set.”
Seven-time champion Serena Williams played her first match on Wimbledon Centre Court in almost two years when she dismissed Viktoria Tomova 6-1, 6-4 to reach the third round.
How close is the 23-time major champion close to being 100%? “For me it’s really hard to say,” she said. “I don’t know. There’s so many things that I want to improve on, but that’s kind of how I always feel. I feel like I’m going in the right direction. This match was better than my first round. I just hope every match is better.”
“I think I just played better. I served a little more consistent. Still want to work on getting my first serves in more. Overall it’s definitely a little bit better than the first round.”
Asked to comment on all of the upsets of the Top Ten, she said: “I didn’t know it was half of the top 10.
“It’s hard. Everyone’s playing hard. No one’s giving you anything for free. Today I didn’t get anything for free. In my first round, I didn’t get anything for free.
“I feel like people are going out there and coming out and playing their hardest.”
“No one is going out there and saying, Oh, I have to lose because I’m playing so-and-so today. These women are going out there and they’re fighting. They’re coming out to show that, I belong out here.
“I’m actually doing the same thing. I’m going out there saying, I belong here, as well.”
Williams, although ranked in the 180’s due to maternity leave, came into the tournament as the 25th seed. She gave birth to her daughter Olympia last September.
She talked about herself and Victoria Azarenka as mothers playing on the tour.
“I think it will be nice to see ladies live their life and not start having families at my age,” she said with a laugh.
“I think Wimbledon did such a good thing with the seeding. It will be really nice for these women to take a year off, and have the most amazing thing in the world, then come back to their job and not have to start from the bottom, scrape, scrape, scrape. Still give them an opportunity to be out there for bringing life into the world.”
Five-time champion Venus Williams, the 9th seed and the oldest women in the singles draw at 38, rallied past 141st ranked qualifier Alexandra Dulgheru of Romania 4-6, 6-0, 6-1.
“I’m happy. I won, so… As long as I walk away at the end with a win, that’s the goal”.
“Ideally it’s two sets,” Venus said. “If it’s not two sets, then go to Plan B.”
For the first time two out of the three matches on Centre Court were women’s matches.
“I was really overjoyed when I saw the schedule for today,” said Venus. “We have a lot of equal play on the main courts in the other three Grand Slams. It was just fantastic to see Wimbledon also follow suit. It’s wonderful to hopefully have that continue, to have equal for the men and the women.”
Seventh seed Karolina Pliskova defeated two-time major champion Victoria Azarenka 6-3, 6-3. It’s the first time that the Czech has reached the third round of Wimbledon.
“I still think I can serve much better than I served. It was enough today,” Plaiskova said. “Sometimes when you don’t have to, when she doesn’t push you that much, you just don’t serve that well. I still think I can have better percentage, maybe more aces. I know I can feel a little bit better.
“It was so far one of my best matches on grass, for sure. I mean, she’s always tough, so it’s never easy.”
“For sure I think this was for me the best match what I played against her,” Pliskova added. “Not in the past. I played some better ones Indian Wells, even though I lost the match.
“I feel like on hard courts she’s definitely the strongest. For sure not on clay, and maybe not on grass. Although I still felt this was quite good match. I was expecting she’s going to play little bit worse because we played in Madrid, and I think the level there was just not great from both of us.
“But anyway, on hard court I feel she’s the best. She was playing pretty well in Miami, although I was not 100% there. It was kind of tough match there.
“Anyway, I think she feels the best on hard court. I don’t know what she’s going to say. She’s always fighting. Even though she’s never easy to beat because she’s still playing, doesn’t matter how she’s playing, even she’s playing bad level, that day she’s still fighting. She’s, for sure, good player.”
“I think overall throughout the match I put myself in a good situation to have opportunities and to take chances and I created them, but I didn’t necessarily connect with the momentum of the match and she did,”admitted Azarenka.” And she took those opportunities.”
Other seeds advancing on the women’s side were 10 Madison Keys, 13 Julia Goerges, 20 Kiki Bertens, and 29 Mihaela Buzarnescu.
Lucie Safarova defeated No. 32 seed Agniezska Radwanska in straight sets.
On the men’s 11 Sam Querrey, 13 Milos Raonic and 22 Adrian Mannarino also advanced.
No. 17 Lukas Pouille was the only men’s seed ousted on Wednesday.
Several matches were suspended due to rain late in the day aroun 7 p.m., the matches to resume on Thursday.
