Passing Torches at Wimbledon – The American Spectator

Every edition of The Championships at the All-England Lawn Tennis Club at Wimbledon is automatically a great sports story. A popular star aching for her first Slam took on and beat two of the best, including the defending champion, and yet crumpled under the strain of a final match and ended in tears — and firm resolve to try again. An aging superstar going for one more hurrah and yet more records could not deflect the fiery enthusiasm of youth, and took it like a real man and a sport, and said he was not done yet.

In the ladies draw, a little-known Czech, Marketa Vondrousova, won it all, a first for an unseeded entry since the Open era began in 1968. In the men’s draw a young prodigy took the trophy from the defending champion whom everyone in the sports press assumed would win it once again. There were rained out days, as usual, and there was an appalling tragedy when an out of control vehicle crashed into an elementary school down the street from the club, killing two little girls.

Maybe they should have stopped — but no, life, and the show, must go on, and anyway there is too much money on the line. The prize money is in the millions, equal to both ladies and gentlemen (as British usage calls women and men in tennis) and there are the amazing endorsements, which have the downside that many players are wearing identical kits to billboard their sponsors.

Miss Elina Svitolina (as usage has it, since her professional career was well established before she married a French tennis star and became Mme. Gael Monfils) is among the top players of her time (she is in her late 20s), but marriage, parenthood — and war, for she is Ukrainian and, like many Odessa natives, Jewish — took time off and she fell off the rankings. Returning to the tour this season, she has been on a mission, as mother and patriot. She says the war and motherhood sharpen her focus; observers assure she is playing better than ever.

A win over Venus Williams in the first round started a streak that saw her beat three other Slam champions, including Sofia Kenin, Victoria Azarenka, and no. 1 seed Iga Świątek. The repeat champion at the French Open, and defending champion at the U.S. Open, Miss Świątek’s game looked stronger and more accurate in the first set of their quarter-finals match — until Miss Svitolina caught up and took it, 7-5. Miss Świątek edged her in a second set tiebreak and then lost her composure in the deciding third.

It was a tale of grit and courage, no question. An incident involving Miss Azarenka in the round of 16 detracted momentarily. Miss Azarenka knew that the Ukrainian players were in no-handshake mode with Russians and Belarusians and, herself Belarusian, she respected this. (Ukrainian men are not playing because they are in uniform on the eastern front.) After the match, which she lost narrowly, Miss Azarenka, two-time winner at the Australian Open and three-time finalist at the U.S., and herself a mother, waved her hand in congratulations. But the crowd got the impression that she was not offering a handshake and they booed. This looked unsporting — impolite, surprising in an English sports crowd (football excepted), and a reporter made it worse at the subsequent press conference, by nagging her on Russia, evidently unaware of her nationality.

Miss Svitolina had been booed in Paris at the French Open when, losing in the semis to another Belarusian player, Aryana Sabalenka, she snubbed a proffered handshake. Miss Sabalenka, no. 2 seed, was beaten in the semis by Ons Jabeur, a feisty and high-spirited Tunisian player who was last year’s finalist against Elena Rybakina, who she beat here in the quarter finals. (She was also Iga Świątek’s losing opponent in the final at the U.S. Open.) Miss Jabeur was on a tear, and the drama was: Would she stay on it to the very last unforgiving minute?

Miss Svitolina was stopped in the semis by the unseeded Marketa Vondrousova, Mrs. Stepan Simek. She then met Miss Jabeur, saw the breach in the Tunisian’s mental exhaustion after her superb run, and outplayed her. She thus joined the Czech honor roll at Wimbledon that includes Martina Navratilova and Petra Kvitova. (Miss Jabeur beat her too, in the round of sixteen.) Miss Vondrousova at 24 is the first unseeded player in the Open era to win the Venus Rosewater Dish.

Miss Vondrousova, whose early promise was upset by injuries and in fact had been operated on her wrist just months ago, used an assortment of down-the-line passing shots and crosscourt slices that confounded her opponents. By the lights of the tennis press, she was expected to lose against the sixth-seed Ons Jabeur, Mrs. Kamoun. A crowd favorite for her good-natured fighting spirit, she started both sets strong only to find herself outplayed by Miss Vondrousova’s mix of left-handed forehand power, tenacious backhand slices, athletic volleys, and one of the better return of serve games on the women’s tour.

Miss Jabeur is nothing if not resourceful on the court, but the ladies’ draw eventually went to the player who found the most intelligent tactics when they were needed to disrupt arguably stronger players. (And surely, who was under less pressure.) Miss Jabeur had 25 winners to Miss Vondrousova’s ten over their two sets, but she also made 31 unforced errors to her opponent’s 13. Unforced errors is not a very accurate stat, but apart from saying something about your mental exhaustion, it indicates how well the other side keeps you off your best game.

Which may explain the gentlemen’s semi, wherein the dashing 20-year-old prodigy from Spain, Carlos Alcaraz Garfia completely flummoxed the no. 3 seed, Daniil Medvedev. No one doubts the Russian’s court sense and tactical intelligence, but in this case the did-you-see-that-shot quality of Alcaraz’s play, speed, variety, soft hands, placement, power, left him with no answers and he went out quickly.

Medvedev may have been fatigued by the five-setter he had played in the quarters against American breakout star Christopher Eubanks, who came out with a liberated game that, for whatever reason, he has repressed over the several years he has been on tour (he is 27), rarely getting out of first or second rounds. At last unleashing a powerful serve and volley game that suits him, Eubanks has had a fine season so far, capped by his first trophy at the Mallorca Open, played on grass the week before Wimbledon. He will be a man to watch during the summer circuit and at Flushing Meadows for the final Slam of the year.

And of course, so will the biggest winner. Carlos Alcaraz, even after his demolition of Medvedev, was considered the underdog against Novak Djokovic, the defending champion who has not lost a set at Wimbledon since before Queen Victoria, or somewhere around there. No one doubts “Carlito”’s talent and ambition. But nor could anyone forget that Djokovic won here in 2011, ’14, ’15, ’18, ’19, ’21, and ’22 (the tournament was not held in ’20). Facing him in the French Open final scarcely a month ago, the young Spaniard froze — full-body cramp is the lay medical term — though he bravely stayed on court to the painful end.

For just a moment yesterday at the AELTC — the moment it took Djokovic to take the first set 6-1 — that final must have been on many minds. If it was on Alcaraz’s, he did not show it. He came out fighting in the second and third sets, winning the first of these in a masterful tiebreak, which may have been the signal the match was over, because among his other feats, Djokovic was on a streak of 15 consecutive tiebreak wins in Slams, a record.

Alcaraz then proceeded to avenge the first set with a near shutout of his own, let his guard down (or rather caught his breath) in the fourth, and then ran away with the last set, 6-4, winning with a sharp crosscourt forehand that Djokovic netted. It was a good five-set match, with brilliant shots from both players, but after that first set, if you did not know Djokovic’s history you would be safe thinking it was Alcaraz’s to lose. He dominated, hit twice as many winners (66) as Djokovic and they stayed about even on the old unforced’s, and they won the same number of points give or take two for the winner. With that, you know who was dictating play.

That was the show this year. And hear this: the girls’ junior champ this year is a pretty and bright Washington, D.C. native, Clervie Ngounoue.