The Fanatics, a group of Australian sports fans created in 1997 to support their home players, have been out in full force so far this week at Wimbledon, chanting and singing from the stands.
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He wrote on his Twitter, “In case you missed it earlier this year, see the story behind my determination to win Wimbledon“.
Stosur has yet to get beyond the third round at Wimbledon in 13 years of trying. Sharapova, 28, hit 23 winners as she booked her place in the third round.
“I hope I’m not playing my best”. It’s actually frustrating because I’m so competitive.
“I do expect him to serve well, and I do expect him to mix up the game, come up with a lot of variety”, said Djokovic of Tomic.
Tomic exploded onto the scene when he made the quarters at the All England Club as an 18-year-old qualifier in 2011. The Lithuanian double faultied on match point.
The 59th-ranked Watson had the partisan Centre Court crowd roaring throughout but fell short of becoming the first British woman to beat a No. 1 since Sue Barker defeated Chris Evert in Boston in 1979. He took the third set on a tie-break and by the fourth he was in complete control.
The 28-year-old stopped to sign a prosthetic leg from a man in the crowd.
Djokovic signed the artificial limb and handed it back. With his win against Tomic, Djokovic has won 16 straight matches against Aussies, with his only tour-level loss coming against Lleyton Hewitt in the 2006 U.S. Open. The Dominican was no match for the number four seed.
Spanish ninth seed Carla Suarez Navarro went down 6-2, 6-0 to Latvia’s Jelena Ostapenko in just 52 minutes while Italian 24th seed Flavia Pennetta lost 6-3, 2-6, 6-4 to Kazakhstan’s Zarina Diyas.
“I can’t even remember saying that”, Kyrgios said in his press conference.
Fresh from her first career title at Eastbourne last week, the 18-year-old 30th seed, revitalised after a medical time-out following the fifth game, came back from 5-1 down in the first set. To put that into perspective, Roger Federer has fallen in the third round or earlier twice, Rafael Nadal three times and Andy Murray once in that span. He will next play Richard Gasquet of France. Champion Marin Cilic of Croatia had a battle on his hands before advancing past Ricardas Berankis of Lithuania, 6-3, 4-6, 7-6 (8), 4-6, 7-5.
Grigor Dimitrov also went through in straight sets.
The 21st-seeded Gasquet needed five match points in the final game before closing out the win.
Wimbledon officials only close the folding roof during play for rain or bad light. However, he had to turn it inside out after it was apparently deemed too colorful for the tournament’s all-white dress code.
The fire started inside a mechanical room in the east side of the building, All England Club spokesman Johnny Perkins said. Wawrinka recorded his best Wimbledon performance by reaching the quarterfinals in 2014.
Next for the fourth seed will be David Goffin, the Belgian who saw off Liam Broady on Wednesday and followed up on Friday by beating Marcos Baghdatis.
It was a similarly one-sided story on Court One where Sharapova eased past Begu 6-4 6-3.
But Kyrgios did show off his repertoire of laughs, curses, racket tosses and, better yet, astonishing serves and fine forehand winners.
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After dismissing Babos on Centre Court – where a small electrical fire in a mechanical room set off alarms once play was done for the day – Serena was able to settle in front of a TV to watch Venus finish off Putintseva.
