2024 Wimbledon

(7) Paolini 2/6/4 - 6/2/6 (31) Krejcikova

As Paolini was stepping up to take the opening serve, Krejcikova asked for a moment and they each mumbled around the court for an extra second before starting; but it struck me that Krejcikova wasn't saying, 'hey, could you give me a second?' to Paolini it was more like 'no, no, you're not supposed to start yet'. A brilliant little eye of the tiger moment. And in the opening set, Paolini struggled to find her serve and Krejcikova played solid (if rather vanilla) and easily rolled up over her diminutive  competitor. Krejcikova's serve was pretty much the same fast ball down the middle every time, not overpowering but consistent (even robotic) and Krejcikova was putting her forehand returns deep to the baseline and pushing Paolini back. Often times, especially in Ladies' tennis, the one who has to work harder will not be the victor, so as active as Paolini was, it felt like in the long run she was working against herself. Felt like Krejcikova was in control and Paolini was flailing, felt like this was gonna be over quick. 

But after dropping the 1st set, Paolini found her serve, suddenly Krejcikova was making a lot of unforced errors and the second set was the opposite of the first: Paolini's work was paying off and it was Krejcikova lumbering around out there. Another detail: in the 2nd set Krejcikova went through this phase of not hitting her serves and letting the ball drop back down; the commentator fretted that she was losing her confidence but I thought it was another psych-out technique: she was trying to put Paolini on the puppet string and get her thinking about tennis instead of playing it. 

Once they both went through their ups and downs and settled into themselves, the 3rd set was good stuff. Paolini had some nasty returns, Krejcikova had some nifty winners, it was back and forth action. Then tied at 3-3, Paolini double faulted away the game and that felt like the death blow. At 5-4, serving for the match, Krejcikova brought back her non-serving thing and, again, it didn't strike me as nerves, it struck me as a psych-out move. But sometimes that can backfire: instead of just playing your best tennis, you're trying to tiptoe through some game you're playing in your head and you lose focus. It felt for a moment like Paolini was gonna steal the break back and we might get to a tie break. But Krejcikova got over her shakiness, made enough winning plays to seal the match.

Fun match! These were two totally different players, different styles, different temperaments, different strategies and they both overcome their adversities to put on a good show. Good win for Krejcikova, not sure if she's back on track or if this was just a good two weeks for her. Tough L for Paolini but I think she's gonna be a tough out at the US Open, looking forward to seeing her. 

(2) Djokovic 2/2/6 - 6/6/7 (3) Alcaraz

Man, I've seen Djokovic lose before but I don't recall ever seeing him just get stomped like a bug before. Alcaraz was returning every ball which pushed Djokovic into really weird unforced errors compounded by the fact that Djokovic never got his serve going either. Really, the only moment of hope for Djokovic was when Alcaraz got the yips when serving for the match: he's up 40-love and then somehow loses the game. Alcaraz pretty well dominated from beginning to end. When Medvedev took out Sinner in the quarters (kept waiting for Medvedev to blow it in the 5th, kept waitng for Sinner to take over, but it never happened--good win for Medvedev), Djokovic must've been thinking that the tourney was his now, but he forgot about Alcaraz, who is officially the man now. I presume he'll be #1 going into the US Open and I'd put him as the fave.