Cibulkova’s strong run puts wedding in limbo
WIMBLEDON— The church, the dress, the flowers, the guests, the catering: For a year, Dominika Cibulkova has been planning the details of her splashy wedding. But she may have got one thing wrong: The date.
The Slovakian’s nuptials to longtime beau Miso Navara are planned for Saturday. Except Cibulkova might be otherwise engaged on that day — on centre court at SW19, reaching for the bouquet of a Wimbledon ladies title.
Of course there’s tense tennis to be played between now and then. The muscular 27-year-old — built like a fire hydrant — has never made the last four at the All England Club.
However, time is rapidly running out on making a W-Day decision about the fancy fete. So, should Cibulkova today defeat unseeded Elena Vesnina in the round of eight, she’s pulling the plug. On the wedding, of course, not the tournament.
It’s a bride’s prerogative. And this bride would be over the moon — honeymoon deferred also — to bide her time.
“If I would win (Tuesday), then we will change it,” Cibulkova declared at the press conference after her three- set banishment of world No. 3 Agnieszka Radwanska in what was arguably the most exciting and intense match of the tournament thus far. “Then we will postpone it.’’ She came to that conclusion whilst sitting in the ice bath following her 6-3, 5-7, 9-7 vanquishing of Radwanska.
“I said to my team, ‘Okay, now it’s getting more serious. We seriously have to deal with this.’ ”
But what were you thinking woman? Didn’t you look at the calendar?
“We chose this because I never saw myself as such a great class court player,” Cibulkova struggled to answer, without quite coming out and saying she was an idiot lacking in self-confidence. Never believed she had a shot.
Although she’d had a weird dream the other night, whether from bridal nerves or tennis Wimbledon nerves she was uncertain. “I had dreamed it was already Saturday. Then I woke up, I say, ‘No, I have to play match today. We are still at Wimbledon.’ ”
Cibulkova can pinch herself now. Yes, this is real.
At the end of the arduous encounter on Monday, Cibulkova stretched out prone on the grass and sobbed, as her engineer fiancé looked on from the stands (albeit ducking out nervously at various taut junctions; couldn’t bear to watch.) Physically and emotionally drained.
“It was the toughest match in my career, physically and also mentally.’’
But what an exceptional high-quality match it was for both Cibulkova — who easily eliminated Canada’s Eugenie Bouchard the previous night — known as the Pocket Rocket (don’t they realize that moniker belongs to Henri Richard?) and Radwanska, heralded the Escape Artist, 2012 runner-up here.
Rivals who know each other’s game well, having met four times this year alone, Cibulkova seeded nineteenth to Radwanska’s third. Mind the gap. A tilt between power and touch with Cibulkova utilizing a mighty serve and thumping forehand versus the all-court energy and tremendous agility of Radwanska.
The Pole looked atypically flat-footed to start the contest, submitting meekly. They took breaks off each other in the second set, with a gritty Radwanska saving match point to set point in the ninth game. Cibulkova failed to take match point when serving with a 5-4 lead.
The third set was ferocious and epic, both women clearly exhausted yet neither giving an inch through thrillingly protracted rallies, grunts and shrieks amped up in volume. Cibulkova slipped out of an 11th game noose, saving match point on a forehand winner. Another slashing forehand sealed the deal on the second match point, trademark forehand winner enabling her to serve out the contest on her third attempt for a sixth career win against Radwanska.
“I felt really, really tired when the match was going on,” said Cibulkova. “But I was fighting for every single ball.’’
At the end, three hours after it had begun, the crowd rose in delighted applause for both women.
Celebrations were more muted for Americans in the audience — for redwhite-and-blue tennis in general — on an Independence Day which began with four U.S. females in the fourth round but ended with only two of them still alive: the Williams sisters.
The biggest disappointment was the perennially on-coming-but-never-quite-there Madison Keys, who took a tiebreak in the wild opener first set against fifth seed Simona Halep, couldn’t put her foot on the Romanian’s throat in the second, and then suffered leg cramps in the third, bowing out 6-7, 6-4, 6-3.
“I’m sure in two days I’ll look back and see a lot of positives from it, but right now I’m just really frustrated,” said the downcast Keys.
The cramping she blamed on exhaustion and nerves. “It was probably just a bad combination.”
Compatriot Coco Vandeweghe got taken to the woodshed 6-3, 6-3 by Russia’s Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, who pounded a rat-a-tat of blistering winner, advancing to the Wimbledon quarter-finals for the first time in her career.
About those Williams women: Venus, owner of five Wimbledon crowns, lost the first three games of her match against 12th seed Carla Suarez Navarro of Spain but ultimately a massive serve and maybe her nine-inch height advantage helped propel the oldest woman in the draw, at 36, into the quarters.
Serena, top-seed, No. 1 in the world, had zero problems with two-time Grand Slam champion Svetlana Kuznetsova of Russia, banging off 14 aces and winners in the 7-5, 6-0 affair.
The siblings are on track for a possible head-to-head final — which no sane person should want because they put a cork in their killer instincts when facing each other.