HAAS’S CRIME: The Sydney Morning Herald once claimed, “Tommy Haas and Nicolas Kiefer have both been tried and convicted of the gravest crime in German tennis—failing to be the next Boris Becker.”
NO KIDDING: An English writer said, “We Brits like to talk about the weather.”
AHL OVER IT: Noting the overheated fans watching Maria Sharapova‘s win, commentator Lucy Ahl said, “There are so many perspiring princesses out here watching the ice queen.”
BLAME IT ON THE MEDIA: When, during her press conference, second-round winner Coco Vandeweghe began choking on the apple she was eating, a panicky reporter jumped in and said, “Please don’t die, because as usual, they’ll just blame it on the media.”
NAVAL NONSENSE: If Eugenie Bouchard has Genie’s Army, why can’t Christina McHale have her own “McHale’s Navy?”
SO WHAT ELSE IS NEW? In his win over Sam Querrey, Roger Federer hit a between-the-legs lob winner.
A TOO-CRUEL COMMENTARY: When a fire alarm rang loud at the near-sacred deadline time in the press room, one hardscrabble American voice was heard to say, “Burn, baby, burn.”
HEADLINES:
WHY CAN’T YOU SWEAR IN TENNIS?
BRITAIN BUCKLES IN THE HEAT ON A DAY OF CHAOS
SAHARA DUST POSES THREAT AS HEAT NEARS JULY RECORD
BALL BOY, SOLDIER AND JOGGERS IN NEED OF EMERGENCY CARE
SO HOT THE ROADS MELTED
BRITAIN IN MELTDOWN ON THE HOTTEST JULY DAY FOR 160 YEARS
IT’S TIME TO DITCH ALL-WHITE
NAUGHTY NICK BOILS AGAIN
MIGHTY MITE: Kazakhstan’s diminutive Yulia Putintseva won 78% of her first serves against 6’1″ Venus. Williams won 68% on her first serve but prevailed in straight sets.
SAY IT ISN’T SO: Wimbledon’s No. 5 seed, the injury-prone Kei Nishikori, withdrew due to a tear in his calf that he reaggravated in the fifth set of his opening-round win … Serena and Venus Williams withdrew from the doubles, and they could meet in the fourth round … During his first-round loss, last year’s Wimbledon doubles champ Jack Sock fractured his finger.
GO FIGURE: Rafa Nadal is so used to speaking English that in the Spanish portion of his press conference he answered a question in English … Tough guy Lleyton Hewitt admitted he cried after Australia lost some tough Davis Cup ties.
THE MATTEK-SANDS OF TIME: Times have changed for Bethanie Mattek-Sands. Once a 15-minutes-of-fame fashion rebel, the American veteran is having a dreamy season. No, it’s not just that before Wimbledon she produced a hilarious video, complete with her wearing a skull-and-bones Pirates cape in a light-hearted but devastating spoof of Wimbledon’s rather snooty old school dress code.
Ironically, Bethanie plays old-school tennis. She likes to charge and attack. Earlier this year, she teamed with Lucie Safarova to win both the Aussie and French Open doubles titles, and more recently she won three singles matches to move through Wimbledon’s rugged qualifying rounds. She joked, “If you can play Roehampton, you can play anywhere.” But it was no joke when Mattek-Sands upset Ana Ivanovic—the No. 7 seed and recent French Open semi-finalist—6-3, 6-4 in the second round.
As for Wimbledon’s dress code, Bethanie said “I think it’s a little excessive … I‘ll jump on the boat with Roger [Federer, who said it was a bit much] … They are still kind of picking at people for a certain stripe … You can’t even wear off-white or cream. I was going to joke about that. I was like, ‘Man, if you wash your whites too many times, they will be illegal.’ Better be washing it in cold water. It’s tough to be creative here.”
Well, at least she Bethanie was creative at her wedding. She wore a black gown.
WHAT’S THAT NAKED SWISS GUY DOING IN MY MAGAZINE? Stan (“Just with a tan”) Wawrinka will be featured in the Body Issue of ESPN The Magazine holding nothing but his Yonex.
KNICK KNOCKED: For years, Coco Vandeweghe‘s uncle Kiki Vandeweghe was a basketball stalwart. And Coco follows the game closely. After her convincing second-round win over big-serving world No. 11 Karolina Pliskova, she switched subjects to hoops and said the New York Knicks had been handcuffed by ‘Melo’—their controversial star Carmelo Anthony, who Coco feels doesn’t have any real fire in his eyes. Speaking of, Coco would appear to be quite mellow herself. She has a sweet name, her mother was a hippie, and she’s from Southern California. But she’s fierce, too, and is hardly hampered by any lack of ambition. She says, “I want to become No. 1, why not?”
MUSICAL CRITIQUE OF THE DAY: Wimbledon Live radio said that Aussie Nick Kyrgios was “greeted on court [by the Aussie Fanatics] with a dreadful dirge that had nothing to do with a song.” BTW: We once suggested that to get a sense of the Fanatics, “just imagine Duke’s Cameron Crazies, add a splash of the Seattle Seahawks’ 12th-man intensity, and a bit of the zany-but-lovable, Stanford band.”
SCOUTING REPORT: Rufus the Hawk is trained to keep pigeons away, but apparently that isn’t much good when it comes to keeping diminutive birds—in this case, Eurasian blue tits—at bay. The warm heat brings out insects in the grass, and a small bird interrupted Djokovic‘s first-round match. Novak said it had flown all the way from Belgrade to cheer him on.
SPEAKING OF RUFUS: Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall—resplendent in a white dress—had a longer exchange with Rufus the Wimbledon hawk than Rafa the Wimbledon champ.
SORRY MA, SORRY PA: Petra Kvitova‘s parents got the honor of sitting in the Royal Box. But after she swept through her first-round match in just 35 minutes, she apologized to them because the match was so brief.
THE TRULY CIVIL WAR—SERENA VS. VENUS: Venus and Serena could meet in the fourth round. Serena leads 14-11 in their rivalry. At Wimbledon they have played in four finals and one semifinal. Serena prevailed in the finals in 2002, 2003 and 2009. Venus won their semi in 2000 and the 2008 final. They each have won five Wimbledon singles titles, and together they’ve won five Wimbledon doubles titles.
LAST WIMBLEDON HURRAHS: We know this will be the last Wimbledon for Lleyton Hewitt and Jarkko Nieminen. But there is a decent chance Tommy Haas will be back next year. The 37-year-old wants to play the Olympics. An age addendum: Doubles partners Kimiko Date-Krumm and Francesca Schiavone, who won their first-round match, have a combined age of 79.
JUST WONDERING: What was more expressive of Lleyton Hewitt’s Wimbledon career—that so far the Aussie has hit the most emblematic shot of the tourney (a leaping, backhand volley at crunch time), or that Lleyton went down fighting to the very bittersweet end, losing 11-9 in the fifth to Finland’s Jarkko Nieminen? BTW: the Finn once played Andy Murray in front of the Queen, and in the final match of his Wimbledon career, he lost on Centre Court to the reigning King of Wimbledon, Novak Djokovic.
HEWITT’S BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT: Not winning the Australian Open.
DEAR TO NOVAK’S HEART: When IT asked Novak Djokovic to reflect on that incredible round of applause he got after losing the French Open to Stan Wawrinka, the Serb said, “It was one of the most beautiful moments that I’ve experienced … In the ideal scenario it would be great [if] I would win … But it wasn’t to be … I had to accept that and move on.
“But what I experienced with Stan, the amount of respect we showed to each other, the way the post-match ceremony happened, and the way that both him and I received the ovation, was very unique … I’ll remember it for a long time. Even though I lost the match, that was a big win. It was something that is far more important than trophies. Winning or losing matches, it’s the appreciation from the people. That is something that is really dear to my heart.
“It’s a responsibility, as well, to keep on moving forward and keep on having the same kind of approach.”
FASTEN YOUR SEAT BELTS: For the second Wimbledon in a row, power hitters Nick Kyrgios and Milos Raonic will face each other. The Canadian “hair-apparent” who beat Tommy Haas blasted a 145 mph serve, the third fastest in Wimbledon history. FYI: Taylor Dent—148 mph; Andy Roddick—146 mph.
