Wimbledon men’s four-headed monster devours all challengers
Murray, Federer, Djokovic, Nadal reach round of 16
LONDON — A doozy of a Monday awaits at Wimbledon. It’s packed enough with apparent goodies that one could yearn to clone oneself to appear at five different courts and perhaps, the way things are going here, acquire five different sunburns.
Even absent the star shine and historical significance of mega-champion Serena Williams, away on her pregnancy hiatus, the women’s final 16 managed to churn out no fewer than seven boffo matchups out of eight, including one featuring her 37-year-old sister Venus, a five-time champion.
But the men’s side retained for the second week, for the first time since 2014 and only the second since 2011, its entire, four-headed, 126-year-old, Federer-nadal-djokovic-murray giant, which has gobbled up every single one of the last 14 Wimbledons, with plural titles for all four.
“We just seem to not go anywhere,” Roger Federer said of the four players aged 35, 31, 30 and 30.
In this Monday mix to follow the traditional Sunday off, American Sam Querrey could achieve a worthy turn of self-deprecation.
He went out Saturday and played one game, having walked out in darkness Friday night with a 6-5 lead in the fifth set against No. 10-ranked Jo-wilfried Tsonga. When Querrey cracked a swell backhand winner up the line and exhaled at two Tsonga errors that closed the thing at 6-2, 3-6, 7-6 (7-5), 1-6, 7-5, he had earned a fourth-round match with the South African Kevin Anderson, slated for a sideshow at Court No. 18.
“I’m sure it’s not the top of everyone’s list as far as matches to get on Monday,” grinned Querrey, ranked No. 28, recent puller of Wimbledon upsets, having felled then-no. 1 Novak Djokovic last year and pretty much ruined Djokovic’s life from there.
Djokovic lost in the U.S. Open final, the Australian Open second round and the French Open quarterfinals to become, of course, an abject failure at life with only 12 Grand Slam titles and a career Grand Slam. But if you look here, Djokovic has won all seven of his sets and might have won nine had Martin Klizan not retired early in the first round.
He has had a different sort of look about him, unless that’s an illusion from excessive sunlight.
“Obviously when you’re playing well, feeling well, you’re even more, I guess, motivated, passionate, to see how far it can take you,” Djokovic said Saturday after shooing Ernests Gulbis, 6-4, 6-1, 7-6 (7-2).
Federer has lost none of his seven sets (also with a retirement tucked in there) and showed some patented artwork through a 7-6 (7-3), 6-4, 6-4 passage through veteran Mischa Zverev, while Rafael Nadal has lost none of his nine and, counting the French Open, has won 28 sets in a row (including all 19 at the French, with a retirement tucked in there).
Defending champion Andy Murray has been a dud by contrast, winning merely nine of 10 sets, losing one to Fabio Fognini.
“I’m not that surprised,” said Federer, who seldom seems that surprised, “because I thought that everybody this week was going to find their form, especially speaking about Andy and Novak. So I thought they did it very well. With me, I hoped I was going to be there (after a springtime hiatus). Whereas with Rafa’s confidence, I thought he was also going to be there.”
Federer said all this through the vestiges of a head cold that might have exceeded his draw for difficulty, so that the conversation turned to whether he had used “paracetamol,” and he said, “How many times I have to sneeze, you don’t want to know that stuff.”
(Some of his devoted fans probably do.)
Beyond even that, the men have upwardly mobile youth at No. 8 (Dominic Thiem) and No. 12 (Alexander Zverev), still going here, so that there’s barely even room to mention that Zverev will play No. 7 Milos Raonic, seen here last year merely in the final.