Keys, Venus Fall at Wimbledon
The top seeds continued to fall at the All-England Club on Friday as the second round of the 2018 Wimbledon Championships began to come to a close.
Early on, 10th seeded American and last year’s U.S. Open runner-up Madison Keys bowed out to Russian qualifier Evgeniya Rodina in a see-saw match.
Rodina seemed to be on her way to a victory in the second set. Despite falling behind early in the first, she rallied to win the opener, and then built a 4-0 lead in the second set with break points for a 5-0 lead.
It then became Keys’ time for a run, as she won eight of the next nine games to win the second set and take the early lead in the decider.
But as neither player could find any footing on their own serve, the match continued to rock back-and-forth, and it was Rodina who would find herself securing the last break. As Keys served at 4-5 to stay in the match, one incredible crosscourt winner set up match point, and a Keys shot into the net on the next point sealed the deal for Rodina.
“Of course I am surprised I won,” said a smiling Rodina afterwards. “It’s the best match I ever played.”
Her task doesn’t get any easier in the next round as she will meet Serena Williams, the seven-time Wimbledon champion.
Serena defeated France’s Kristina Mladenovic 7-5, 7-6(2) in her third round match on Wednesday.
“Every opponent is playing their A game and, as we see in this tournament, so many top players have lost,” Serena said of her approach moving forward. “And technically I’m not a top player, but I do have the wins of one, so I just get ready for anyone I play.”
Her older sister, Venus, a five-time Wimbledon champion was defeated by 20th seeded Kiki Bertens of Netherlands. Bertens sealed the 6-2, 6-7(5), 8-6 victory by breaking Venus in her final service game.
“I can still not really believe it,” said Bertens. “It was such a tough match and such a big fight. It was tough because I played her in Miami and had a few match points and I lost. Of course that was going through my mind sometimes. But I was like, ‘Ok, keep on going for it. This is Wimbledon, third round, you’ve never reached the fourth round before you’ve nothing to lose so just keep going for your shots.’
It’s really tough for me to play on the grass, to play aggressive, but that was really the key today. I did it really well so I’m kind of proud of myself.”
Bertens moves on to play seventh-seed Karolina Pliskova, who fought back from a set down to beat 29th seeded Romanian Mihaela Buzarnescu 3-6, 7-6(3), 6-1.
Ekaterina Makarova followed up her upset over second-seed Caroline Wozniacki by taking out Lucie Safarova 4-6, 6-4, 6-1 to book her spot in the fourth round. She plays Italy’s Camila Giorgi, who came back to beat Katerina Siniakova 3-6, 7-6(6), 6-2.
13th seed Julia Goerges hung on to defeat 23rd seed Barbora Strycova 7-6(3), 3-6, 10-8, and will take on Donna Vekic next, who continued her Wimbledon campaign with a 7-6(2), 6-1 win over Yanina Wickmayer.
