← Served with Andy Roddick
Served with Andy Roddick
QUICK SERVED: Wimbledon Day 4 - Draper & Paul Upset, Djokovic Advances, & more
00:14:14
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- [00:01]
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- [00:42]
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- [01:17]
John Wertheim
Hey, everyone, John Wertheim. Here it is, today's quick serve. Day four, Wimbledon 20 25. We are brought to you by Mercury. We've got a full slate of matches to get through, but before we do that, I think we need to get to the most important news of the day. Producer Mike. Mike Hayden in town for Wimbledon. I'll ask you how your first day at the All England Club was, but just as important, how was the chicken sandwich? Assuming you got it at Maison Saint Cassian, how was that?
- [01:45]
Producer Mike
We're currently in the Uber right now. We just crossed the river. We're about back into town. My brother and I, we had a great day. Shout out to Sophia, who let us go the wrong way into our seats at center court. Shout out to all the people that we walked up to me because Sophie was posting about me and they were yelling. Producer Mike. But the chicken sandwich was absolutely phenomenal. And the waiter goes, you know, because we're American, he's like, you know, that's Andy Roddick's favorite sandwich. I was like, I do know that. Showed him the text message that I just sent to Andy and he was beside himself. So very cool. It was, it's Wimbledon village is magical. It was one of the most beautiful sporting experiences I think I've ever had. The crowds were crazy. I think I texted that and John, you said wait until they expand and it, it's about as near perfection of a sporting event you can attend.
- [02:35]
John Wertheim
Oh, man. See, after that, the matches are secondary. You got the chicken sandwich, you got the Wimbledon experience. They did play matches though, today. We'll do a full food review next week. But let's talk a little bit about the tennis today. This was like, it's like old timers day at the ballpark. This was the old guys still got it edition of tennis because the first match on center that producer Mike and many others saw was Novak Djokovic, who absolutely was in full flight. This was peak. Novak doesn't matter if he's 38, doesn't matter if he hasn't won a major in almost two years. This was about as clean a tennis match as you can get. He played Dan Evans. And these match stats are just, it's equally a joke and suitable for framing. I mean, you just look at these and it's just comical. 89% first serves 122 of 26 at the net. Broke six times, didn't get broken once. Only gave up five games to a British player. Here's a fun fact for you, by the way. I wish I could attribute this to the person who, who gave this to me and I don't know who it is, but Novak Djokovic has only lost to one player at their home major in his career. So Americans in the U.S. french, French players at the French Open, of course, offseason Melbourne. The one match he has lost to a home player at their home slam was the final in 2013 here to Andy Murray. Other than that, he's pretty good road player and today was just something. And he, I, I've never seen him giddy like this. I saw him after the match up on the roof of the media deck and he was absolutely floating. I mean, he was just a guy with 24 majors. And I think he really was marveling at his own performance and is enough of a realist. I mean, he said flatly, look, if I keep playing like this, I've got a real chance to win this event. It's one match. It's against Dan Evans, who's a nice, potentially tricky player. But this is a guy who didn't qualify for the previous major. Let's not read too, too much into one match. But Djokovic was just a joke today. And I think Andy's pick that he may well find himself in another final looks, looks pretty good based on today, other matches. Djokovic is the men's Player with the most majors actively. Who is the women's player with the most active majors? Venus Williams notwithstanding, it's iga Swiatek and she has come here with didn't have a ton of momentum, though she did reach the final in Bod hor just a few days ago and she is still alive. She played Katie McNally from Cincinnati, Ohio, hometown of producer Mike. Katie McNally's had a bit, you know, some injuries, bit of an up and down career. These two were actually junior rivals. Really nice to see Katie McNally, who's a very talented, athletic player, nice hands at the net. And she won the first set from iga, but then Swiatek settled and only gave up two games the rest of the way. Speaking of being stingy with games, producer Mike you saw this. Jannik Sinner played Alexander Vukic and this was something, presumably this was a tennis match, but this was really just a clinic in precision and sort of the machine like tennis of Jannik Sinner. And you think Novak Djokovic plays a good match with an insane stat sheet. And you look at what Sinner did and that was an impressive performance today from the second seed. Other winners today, Mira Andreeva, a winner over Bronzetti. Bronzetti actually served for the second set and then the window shut. And Mira Andreeva playing her way deep into yet another major as a teenager. Elena Rubakma, who won this event three years ago, got by Sakkari very handily in straight sets. And then the big upset of the day. I don't know how big an upset is. If we take a step back, an upset for sure, but I don't think quite as titanic as people will think. And that is Jack Draper, the fourth seed, the Brit against Marin Cilic, who was a former finalist here. He's won a major, 36 years old, but he's really sort of playing his way back into form and he was terrific today. Some of this is going to be the story of Draper and can he handle the nerves and was he too passive, Was he too tentative? And the answer is probably yes on the tentative side. But Marin Chilic just played such an organized match against that crowd. Won the first and second set, dropped the third, and you sort of figured, okay, now the guy who's closer to age 40 than age 30 is going to start to retreat. That didn't happen at all. A late break from Marin Cilic. This is such a class player. This is a guy who's been part of the tennis firmament for 20 years. He's won a major not that it gets him any points on the scoreboard, but just one of the all time good guys in the sport. And that's a big win for him. A disappointment for Jack Draper. This one will sting. The good news, he's learning about these situations. He's had a really good year. If he takes a step back, maybe underperformed a bit at the majors, but here we are in early July and I think he probably would have signed up for this year, all things considered. Bright future for Jack Draper, but it was not his day Today. Other winners, Alex Diminore, who just. All he does is win yet another. This is a guy who made four straight quarterfinals in majors over the last year and a half or so. And now he's back. He beat the qualifier, Arthur Cazzo. Margaret Krijikova, the defending champion, won again, this time over Carolyn Dolahyde. Why are we not talking about her more? Maybe because she'd only won three matches all year coming in because of that back injury. But we know what she can do on the surface. We also look at her performance at high stakes events. I mean, this is someone with two majors who brings her best tennis to the most important events. Keep an eye on her. She won in three sets today. Some good news, bad news, neutral news for the American male contingent. First, the neutral news. Brandon Nakashima took four sets and beat Riley Opelka. That was yank on yank action. Ben Shelton. Listen to this. One game away from beating Rinky Hijikata. Imagine you're 627554. One game from victory. Play is suspended. Ben Shelton will have to come back. Odds are pretty good he'll finish off that one game and then we'll play again on Saturday. Ben Shelton. That lefty serve looking very good. Not, not a great grass court tune up stretch for Ben Shelton, but he's really brought it here and has looked very strong in his first two matches. And then Tommy Paul goes down and you know, he lost to Sebastian Offner. This really to me was as much about a clearly compromised Tommy Paul than it was the opponent. No disrespect to Sebastian Offner here. Offner, the Austrian played very well, but Tommy Paul still. We talked about that AB injury that he suffered at Roland Garros and I think that was probably the story of the match. So a bit of a mixed bag for the American men. Emma Navarro, who has looked very good here. She is a winner. So is Grigor Dimitrov and so is Daria Kazatkina. Let's jump ahead and look to Tomorrow, shall we? We've got Taylor Fritz, who's playing for the fourth time in five days against Alejandro Davidovich. For K, the draw gods did Taylor Fritz no favors. Two big servers, two six, eight opponents. He beat both of them in Pesci, Perry Card and then Gabe Diallo of Canada. Now he gets a much different look, a much different player in Davidovich Fokina, who's actually a Spaniard who plays pretty well on grass, a bit up and down. Taylor Fritz ought to be okay. Carlos Alcaraz, very strange tournament for him so far. Had that really rough first round outing against Fabio Fognini. Went five sets, he was not at all at his best. Looked a little nervous and really settled in, but did so a second round against a qualifier ranked outside the top 500. And now he gets Jean Lenard Struve, a much more conventional opponent. Irina Sabalenka against Emma Radicannu. Again, Emiratkanu looked good for two rounds. Now she gets the number one player in the world. That's the rare third round meeting of two former major champions. Other players in action. I mean, look at this Court one schedule. We talk about the upsets and what it reeks, what it. What's the past tense of rot, what it brings with it, what attends a lot of upsets. I'll tell you what it attends. Here it is first Friday and this is the Court one schedule. No disrespect to any of these players. This is simply a function of how deep these upsets are. Court one, Diane Perry of France against Sonnet Cartel. The heavily tattooed, very likable game. British player Mattia Bellucci, who we talked about yesterday. A fun player to watch, really athletic, playing Cam Norrie, who nice British player who's been to the semifinals here, but came into this tournament outside the top 50. And then Elisa Mertens against Alina Svitolina. That's court one on the first Friday. That really is a representation of just how deep some of these upsets went. Other players in action, Amanda Anisimova, Andrei Rublev, Katchanov. Today's theme really was sort of an old guy. Still got it because in addition to Marin Chilic, age 36 and Djokovic 38, getting it done. Gael Monfis was a game from beating Fucsovic on court 18. He did not close that match. So he'll be back tomorrow to finish off the fifth set of that suspended match. But 38 year old guy on feast also getting it done today. Andy, we'll be back tomorrow. Oh, we're going to do our we're going to special feature here. We'll see how long we continue this. Let's say shout out to poll worker Ben on 11th street in New York City. Big fan of the podcast. How about this for an off court story? We talk about the Alcaraz center here might be an even bigger rivalry this tournament and that is the All England Club against the objecting neighbors who were opposed to the expansion plans that producer Mike mentioned earlier. Wimbledon, of course, trying to sort of colonize the golf course on the other side of the road from the club. And it would really transform this event. It would allow a lot more fans through the gates. It would enable qualifying to be held on the grounds. There'd be another stadium. Mike, you were texting me about how much you enjoyed the experience, but you didn't realize how crowded it would be. Tuesday, big showdown, High Court in London. The objecting party is sort of going to make their final objection, which basically was explained to me was more procedure based than fact based. So they're really this is more sort of sometimes in the US this is the last refuge of scoundrels to attack the procedure rather than the merits of the case. But the objectors are going to be making their case. The All England Club is going to be there defending. We're going to have quarter final action on the grounds. But in some ways this existential question of whether this event is going to expand is going to be going on about eight miles away. It's expected there'll be a resolution by the next few weeks. I'm told it looks good for the All England Club. This will really transform this event. The first thing they're going to do is give 27 acres of parkland to the public. 27 acres is, you know, that's roughly the size of rolling garros. So that's going to go to the public before anything gets done. And then construction is going to begin to really transform this entire facility. It won't be completed until the early 2000 and 30s. So this is not like a US arena where you may take a season off and suddenly you get to a new home. This is going to be a process and in theory you could understand why the neighbors might object to five years of adjacent construction. But I think this will really transform the Wimbledon experience. What you experienced today, Mike, many more thousands of tens of thousands of more fans each day will be able to experience. Anyway, that's some off court news to share. Big day four Friday coming up. Hard to believe we're only on day five of this major. This has been, this has been a wild ride so far and we're going to start to see some of these pockets of the draw where the upsets are going to rear their head. We're going to see players with big opportunity ahead. That will do it for quick serve Day four. From the All England Club, I'm John Wertheim. Andy will be back. You're listening to the Serve Podcast brought to you by Mercury. Enjoy the table tennis everywhere.
- [13:57]
Advertiser
Support for the show comes from Mercury, the banking product that does it all. No, seriously. No more navigating a patchwork of apps and services to keep your business finances in check. Now you can do it all. Invoices, bill pay, reimbursements, financial management and more from one easy, streamlined product. How do I know? I've tried out Mercury myself. Visit mercury.com to join over 200,000 entrepreneurs who use Mercury to do more for their businesses. Mercury Banking that does more. Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services provided through Choice Financial Group Column NA and Evolve bank and trust members FDIC.
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John Wertheim
Fox Creative.
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Hiro the Cat
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John Wertheim
Ew.
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Hiro the Cat
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