Who should beat number one at Wimbledon?
London. Contrary to expectations, Novak Djoković is the main attraction of the new Mallorca Championships these days. At the lawn tournament in Santa Ponça there is a rare opportunity to watch the world number one exclusively in the double competition. Lo and behold: Djoković and his partner Carlos Gómez Herrera, just 258th in the double ranking, marched into the final with great enthusiasm and almost in passing. His lawn game, serve and return worked perfectly.
The double fun in Mallorca is also Djoković’s Wimbledon preparation, where he wants to defend his titles from 2018 and 2019 from Monday (the tournament fell victim to the pandemic in 2020). He has won 14 games in a row at Church Road, most recently he was inviolable even for the always dangerous service giants at Wimbledon and always left the field as the winner when things got really tricky. For example against Rafael Nadal (semifinals 2018) and in the almost five-hour final in 2019 against Roger Federer. This year Djoković also has the greatest of all goals in his sights: catching up with Federer and Nadal with major title number 20 and then completing the first calendar Grand Slam since Rod Laver in 1969.
So who should stop the 34-year-old Serbian? Whether Federer, 39, can become his greatest adversary remains to be seen. Nadal takes care of himself and does without, Dominic Thiem is out for at least five weeks with a wrist injury. The lawn tennis of Medvedev, Tsitispas and Zverev can still be expanded.
That leaves Matteo Berrettini. The Italian, 25, has just won the traditional preparatory tournament at the Queen’s Club and had a considerable lawn record and good lawn players before he rose to the ranks of the top stars two years ago. Berrettini did not get an easy draw, but a final duel with Djoković would be possible. (joe)
(“Die Presse”, print edition, June 26th, 2021)
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