Wozniacki finds loss, bugs hard
Caroline Wozniacki sounded so demoralised in her press conference that you needed to cup your ear to hear her.
And no wonder: she had just been forced to swallow a narrow defeat to an inspired opponent, together with a handful of bugs as a chaser.
Yes, this was the annual visit of the swarm of flying ants to Wimbledon – a natural phenomenon that somehow sounds like a 1950s B movie.
While Wozniacki was slipping to her 6-4, 1-6, 7-5 defeat against world No 35 Ekaterina Makarova on Wednesday (Thursday NZ time), the little devils were buzzing around Court No 1 like partygoers at an all-night rave. Several of them ended up down her windpipe.
‘‘Can the umpire stop this?’’ asked John Inverdale in his BBC commentary. ‘‘I don’t know how,’’ replied summariser Chanda Rubin. The All England Club, always keen to shift the blame, pointed a finger at Mother Nature. ‘‘The seasonal appearance occurs once a year,’’ intoned a straight-faced spokesman, ‘‘when ants embark on what is often referred to as a ‘nuptial flight’.’’ In other words, these insects are loved up and looking to get lucky.
Wozniacki’s day was heading in quite the opposite direction. As she admitted afterwards: ‘‘I can’t even be mad at myself because I played up to the level that I can. She was hitting shots that I just couldn’t look at sometimes.’’
Many of these were screaming backhand winners that kept flying up the lines as if guided by satnav. And one or two had an element of fortune.
For a player of the Russian’s talents, three WTA titles is a poor return. Makarova did suffer a microscopic choke yesterday, wasting four match points to be broken while serving for the match. But she regrouped brilliantly, reeling off six of the last seven points.
Meanwhile Roger Federer and Serena Williams are making it look easy - again. They cruised into the third round with straight-sets victories on Wednesday (Thursday NZ time), looking at home on the Centre Court where they have won 15 titles between them.
Federer won 35 straight points on his serve on route to beating Lukas Lacko of Slovakia 6-4, 6-4,
6-1. It was another dominant display by the eight-time champion, who lost just nine of 61 points on his serve in total and broke Lacko five times, including with a forehand winner to close out the match.
Williams was nearly as good, losing just five of 32 points on her first serve in a 6-1, 6-4 win over Viktoriya Tomova. It was her
16th straight victory at Wimbledon, although she missed last year’s tournament while pregnant.
Five-time champion Venus Williams did better with her comeback attempt.
The No 9 seed, at 38 the oldest woman in the draw, came back to beat 141st-ranked qualifier Alexandra Dulgheru of Romania 4-6,
6-0, 6-1 after dropping the first set for a second straight match.
In the men’s draw, 13th-seeded Milos Raonic and No 11 Sam Querrey also advanced in straight sets.
● Kiwi Michael Venus and Raven Klaasen stood frustratingly close to dashing Lleyton Hewitt’s hopes of making a joyous return to Wimbledon.
Venus and Klaasen were up 7-5
6-2 3-6 4-1 against Hewitt and his Australian compatriot Alex Bolt before rain intervened.