The Wimbledon tennis tournament ended on Sunday in the suburbs of London. Among the Russians, the best result was shown by the country's strongest tennis player Daniil Medvedev, who reached the semifinals.
One for All Wimbledon remains the only Grand Slam tournament where Russian men's singles players have never reached the final. During the Soviet period there was one such tennis player — Alexander Metreveli. But he doesn’t like to remember the decisive match of Wimbledon 1973, since there he had a real chance of winning: in the absence of a number of the strongest players who boycotted the tournament, Jan Kodes from Czechoslovakia became his opponent, and Metreveli was unable to cope with him.
The first week of the tournament did not bode well for Russian players this year either. Daniil Medvedev passed the American Alexander Kovacevich without any problems in the opening match, but then almost tripped over the Frenchman Alexander Muller, on whom he spent four difficult games. The Russian also experienced problems with the German Jan-Lennard Struff.
At the same time, one after another, other Russian players dropped out of the tournament. Andrey Rublev, despite being the sixth seed, laid down his arms in the first round, and Pavel Kotov followed the same path. Karen Khachanov beat Aslan Karatsev in the Russian match in the opening match, but failed to cope with the “qualifier” from France in the second round. Roman Safiullin stayed at the tournament a little longer, but he also left London after the third match.
Medvedev played for all of them. He was, of course, somewhat lucky — in the 1/8 finals, his opponent from Bulgaria, Grigor Dimitrov, withdrew in the first set due to injury. And the Russian had additional time to rest before the quarterfinals, where his opponent was the currently strongest tennis player in the world, Jannik Sinner from Italy. At this level, freshness is of great importance, but here Daniel was given not even hours to rest, but a whole day.
Repeating the past But, of course, this is not the only reason for Medvedev’s victory over the Italian. The Russian generally managed to stick to the game plan and acted confidently on his serve at key moments. And this on grass courts, as the head of the Russian Tennis Federation Shamil Tarpishchev noted in a commentary for, is the key to success. “The same factor will be decisive in the semi-finals,” the FTR president emphasized.
Alas, the Russian tennis player was not enough for the second match in a row against an elite opponent. Medvedev, in the fight for reaching the final, met with last year's Wimbledon winner, Spaniard Carlos Alcaraz. In the first set, the Russian had the advantage and won the tiebreaker. However, the Spaniard then firmly captured the threads of the game and won the next three games. Thus, as last year, Medvedev stopped at the semi-final stage at Wimbledon.
In the final, Alcaraz met with Novak Djokovic — the Serb was recovering from meniscus surgery a few days before the start of Wimbledon, and his performance remained in doubt. But this tennis player can do things that others cannot dream of. Djokovic improved from match to match and eventually reached the fight for his eighth championship title at the oldest tournament in the world.
However, in the final, Alcaraz, who is 16 years younger than the Serb, surpassed his opponent in all components. The Spaniard took the first game on Djokovic's serve and subsequently only increased his advantage. He was fresher, his serve was flying, he managed the most difficult shots and crazy saves. The Spaniard faltered only in the third set, when he served for the match with the score 5:4 — he led 40:0, but did not convert three match points, lost the game and slightly extended the match. Nevertheless, the logical result was Alcaraz’s victory in three sets with a score of 6:2, 6:2, 7:6 (7:4).
The Spaniard won Wimbledon for the second year in a row and won his fourth Grand Slam title. Djokovic, with 24 titles, remains the record holder for this indicator.
Quantity did not translate into quality In the women's Wimbledon tournament, I really wanted to see Mirra Andreeva's next victories — especially after she reached the semifinals of the French Open. However, it was not in vain that Tarpishchev emphasized that constant success cannot now be demanded from the young Russian woman; she must be allowed to develop calmly. Andreeva lost in her first match to another teenage tennis player, Brenda Frukhvirtova.
As a result, only one Russian tennis player out of 11 managed to reach beyond the third round. Anna Kalinskaya lost in the 1/8 finals to Elena Rybakina from Kazakhstan. And the winner of Wimbledon was Barbora Krejcikova from the Czech Republic, who beat Italian Jasmine Paolini, who reached her second consecutive Grand Slam final.
The next major start for the tennis elite is the Olympic Games in Paris. The tournament will take place on the courts of Roland Garros and will begin on July 27. Seven Russian tennis players are scheduled to perform there — Medvedev, Safiullin, Kotov, Andreeva, Ekaterina Alexandrova, Diana Schneider and Elena Vesnina (the latter only in doubles).