Qualifying begins: 22 June
The Draw: 26 June
Pre-event Press Conferences: 27 & 28 June
Order of Play: 28 June
Championships begin: 29 June
COME BACK FOR LIVE SCORES & LIVE BLOG FROM 22 JUNE
Every so often, as hard as it may be to believe, things can come a little too easily for a tennis player in a big match. You walk out prepared, you see the ball well, and suddenly you find yourself swinging with that ideal, but usually elusive, mix of freedom and forcefulness. The ball seems to find the corners by itself, and after a couple of games, you feel as if you couldn’t miss if you tried.
Does this sound like a dream, or at worst, a very good problem to have? It is, for as long as it lasts. But tennis being tennis - i.e., a psychological tightrope walk and inner tug of war from start to finish - it can end up creating as much anxiety in a player as it does joy. Rather than exulting in the moment or gaining confidence from it, you’re just as likely to start questioning when it’s going to end. When is the magic going to wear off? Will I be able to play like this when it gets tight? What if I build a big lead and blow it?
Garbine Muguruza may not have asked herself exactly those questions, in exactly those words, during the first set and a half of her semifinal against Agnieszka Radwanska at Wimbledon on Thursday, but she knew the feeling. The 21-year-old Spanish woman, who had won just one match at Wimbledon before this year, couldn’t have asked for a better start to her maiden Grand Slam semifinal. Through the first 12 games, everything that could go right, did go right for her.
Muguruza, 6ft tall and long limbed, threw down aces; six for the match. She bludgeoned the ball with her full-cut two-handed backhand and swatted it with her rangy forehand; she hit 39 winners to Radwanska’s 16. Unlike Radwanska’s last victim, Madison Keys, Muguruza followed her good shots forward; she was a stellar 17 of 21 at the net. And when Radwanska threw in a 75mph second serve, Muguruza gave it what it deserved, a swift trip past her helpless opponent and into the tarp at the back of the court. It was all so simple and one-sided that you began to wonder how Radwanska had ever won a match against anyone.
Of course, Radwanska, the 2012 Wimbledon finalist, had won a match or two, and Muguruza knew it. And she knew that beating her wasn’t supposed to be this easy. Which, naturally, made her start to worry.
“I was just thinking that the match was going to be tough and I was very nervous in the second set,” Muguruza said when she was asked to describe what was going through her mind when she went up a set and a break.
Muguruza led 6-2, 3-1, and 15-30 on Radwanska’s serve. She had reached the moment when, if she did go on to lose the match, people could say that she blew it or choked it or gave it away. Muguruza had, for the first time all day, something to lose. Not surprisingly, this is often the moment when a player’s nerves start to show - it’s choking, more than losing, that people fear - and it was true for Muguruza on Thursday. At 15-30, she went for a forehand that she had been making all afternoon; this time she hit it long. Radwanska held, and had new life; she was still just one break down. In what felt like the blink of an eye, she won the next four games and the set. If Muguruza wondered when her magical run would come to an end, she had her answer.
The second set sounds as much like a nightmare for Muguruza as the first set sounded like a dream. But there was an upside: The worst was over, and this semi had become a normal match again. Radwanska had made her expected run, and put her famous variety of shots and spins and angles to use. Now Muguruza had company in the race to the finish line, which can be oddly comforting. Getting to the finish wasn’t a matter of staying in the elusive and mystical zone, as it was in the first set; it was a matter of out-competing her opponent.
“Radwanska has a lot of experience, and I just fought,” Muguruza said.
Muguruza finally fought her way past Radwanska 6-2, 3-6, 6-3. She used her serve well, and pushed forward fearlessly. This time, Radwanska, who had two break points in the final game, didn’t make it easy for Muguruza. Maybe that’s the best thing that could have happened to her.
*****
At first glance, it doesn’t appear that Serena Williams is forced to walk the same psychological tightrope as the rest of the world’s tennis players. What could she, a 20-time Grand Slam champion and figure of towering self-confidence, have to worry about? Coming into her semi-final on Thursday against Maria Sharapova, Serena was 37-1 for the season, had won the last three major titles, and was 17-2 against her opponent. To put her domination of Maria in context, the last time Serena lost to her, Rafael Nadal had yet to win a French Open title.
Through the first set on Thursday, there was little to make anyone think that would change, or to make Serena worry. She won the first set 6-2, in 33 minutes, and hit seven aces in her four service games. Serena’s coach, Patrick Mouratoglou, said he thought that Sharapova was nervous and slow out of the gate. To me, Maria looked more resigned than anything else; there’s no sense right now, as there has periodically been over the years, that she’s getting any closer to Serena, and there was no reason for her to think that Serena would suddenly slip up against her when she has a chance to win a calendar-year Grand Slam.
What was once again clear, to Sharapova and everyone else, is that Serena has a fundamental advantage over her on the game’s two most important shots, the serve and the return. There’s a saying in American football that games are won at the line of scrimmage; whichever team pushes the other off that line at the beginning of a play is usually going to be the victor. With her superior serve and return, Serena always wins at the line of scrimmage against Maria.
Yet even Serena can start to worry when things come a little too easily for her. Last month she admitted to panicking when she had a lead on Lucie Safarova in the French Open final, and she tightened up again when she was up a set on Heather Watson in the fourth round at Wimbledon. Serena had no reason to fear either of those opponents, just as she had no reason to fear Sharapova - neither Watson nor Safarova have ever beaten her.
But nerves are rarely rational, and Serena couldn’t keep them at bay entirely in this semi-final, either. Up 6-2, 4-2, 15-40, with two chances to earn an insurance break, Serena suddenly started missing. Three times she had break points on Sharapova’s serve; three times she couldn’t get the return in play. Two games later, at 5-3, Serena had a match point, but pulled an easy forehand - one that she would drill for a winner 99 times out of 100 in practice - into the tramlines. And in the final game, serving for the match at 5-4, Serena tightened up on a second serve and double faulted.
“I was a little nervous out there,” Serena admitted later. “The semifinals at Wimbledon—it’s been a long time since I’ve been this far in this tournament.”
What’s the difference between Serena and the rest of the world? On her other four serves in that final game, she hit three aces and a ball that Sharapova barely touched with her frame. Serena is so far ahead of the pack that even in those moments she loses the inner tug of war with her nerves, she can still win the outer tug of war with her opponent. One match away from her second Serena Slam, she’s living a tennis player’s dream that looks like it might never end.