Djokovic defeat surprises Laver
LONDON — Rod Laver figured Novak Djokovic might very well be the player and this might very well be the year that would finally end Laver’s distinction as the last man to win a calendar-year Grand Slam in tennis.
“It’s a tough road,” Laver said Saturday in a telephone interview with The Associated Press from his home in California. “Certainly, I thought he could be the guy to do it.”
Laver tuned in on TV to see some of the match that ended Djokovic’s bid, a 7-6 (6), 6-1, 3-6, 7-6 (5) loss to the United States’ Sam Querrey in the third round of Wimbledon.
Winning all four major tennis tournaments — the Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon and the U.S. Open — in a single season has been accomplished by only two men. Don Budge, an American, did it in 1938, and Laver, an Australian, pulled it off twice, in 1962 as an amateur and in 1969 as a professional.
Djokovic came to the All England Club after collecting four consecutive major titles, something no man had achieved since Laver all those years ago. But Djokovic did it over the past two seasons, not all in one, so the Serb was halfway to the true Grand Slam.
“When he won the French Open, I thought: ‘Wimbledon, he’s won it twice in a row, why wouldn’t he come in confident and be able to win again?’ So I put him down as the favorite to win Wimbledon,” Laver said. “And then it’s a matter of controlling nerves and being healthy when you get to the last one.”
As he watched the match against Querrey, Laver said, he was struck by Djokovic’s lower-than-usual level of play.
“I don’t know whether it was the pressure or whether he wasn’t feeling up to power. I don’t know what his situation was health-wise, but it didn’t look like he was ready to play a big match. The rain didn’t help. But he wasn’t playing his best tennis, and Querrey kept the pressure on with that serve.”
Serena fined
Serena Williams and Viktor Troicki were fined $10,000 apiece on Saturday for unsportsmanlike conduct at Wimbledon.
The biggest amount deducted from a player’s paycheck at this year’s tournament so far was the $12,000 for Britain’s Heather Watson, for jamming her racket into the grass.
The No. 1-seeded Williams’ fine was from her second-round victory over Christina McHale at Centre Court on Friday. She smashed her racket repeatedly against the turf while sitting in her sideline chair after dropping the first set, then flung the piece of equipment so far behind her that it landed in the lap of a TV cameraman.
“I’ve cracked a number of rackets throughout my career. I’ve gotten fined a number of times for cracking rackets,” Williams said. “In fact, I look at it like I didn’t crack one at the French Open or Rome, so I was doing really good.”
Troicki, a Serb seeded 25th, was punished for his tirade against chair umpire Damiano Torella at the end of a five-set loss in the second round Thursday.