Footballers love him, of course. The grass under their feet, that’s their world. With tennis players, on the other hand, there is no surface that splits so deeply. Either you love him or you hate him. There are hardly any gray or rather green zones. Still, this difficult relationship has a chance to grow and thrive. Even the best sometimes take years to get used to playing on grass properly.
Even for eight-time Wimbledon champion Roger Federer, it wasn’t love at first sight when he first tried out this dull, stubborn surface in London in 1998 at the age of 16. The lawn so upset the young Swiss that his nerves gave way: “I saw ghosts and thought the net was too high.”
No wonder, grass is the most unpredictable surface in tennis. A whim of nature, so to speak. Uneven and impetuous at the same time. And so incredibly fast that nowhere else does it depend so much on reflexes and intuition. “Sometimes it’s enough that you blink your eyes at the wrong moment when returning,” Federer once remarked. You have to accept that you have no control over this fickle surface, he added: “Grass is mentally difficult for everyone.” For some it drives them to despair. Ivan Lendl therefore found: “Grass is only for cows!”
And so Alexander Zverev is still strange with the treacherous green. So far, Germany’s best tennis player only really feels comfortable with a golf club in his hand. Zverev is not only annoyed by the fact that the balls are constantly jumping, “they also jump extremely low,” complained the 26-year-old from Hamburg: “That means the turns are below my swing zone.” That: Get out of your comfort zone and get down on your knees. Zverev doesn’t like that and so he prefers to state: “I’m too big for this surface.”
But that’s nonsense. Former Wimbledon champions like Goran Ivanisevic or Richard Krajicek are giants like Zverev. He would have to change his footwork, you should be particularly light-footed on grass. Nothing for Zverev. At the tournament in Halle, Westphalia, he seemed to have slowly made friends with the green and played his way to the semi-finals.
In the first round, a solvable task awaits Zverev
“I am currently very satisfied with my tennis level. I think I’m playing well,” said Zverev. He didn’t sound really convinced. Knowing full well that he has never gotten further than the round of 16 at Wimbledon. And the sacred pitch at the All England Club is a completely different challenge. Manicured to exactly eight millimeters a day, the grass in the club has now been so decelerated that players like Zverev who have strong serve have lost their greatest advantage.
The fact that there is a solvable task waiting for Zverev in the first round with the Dutch qualifier Gijs Brouwer hardly increases the optimism. Because Carlos Alcaraz would probably be his opponent in the round of 16 and the world number one has just discovered his soft spot for grass.
Wimbledon
From the 3rd of July The All England Lawn Tennis Championships start. The Women’s Finals takes place on 16th of July instead, the Men play at 17th July out the winner. For men it can Novak Djokovic in London to extend his record. If the Serb wins his eighth Wimbledon title, he will draw level with Roger Federer. There is no one favorite among women. defending champion Elena Rybakina as well as Peter Kvitov have won Wimbledon before. Then there are the world number ones Every Swiatek (but who is not a lawn lover). There is a third Wimbledon winner in the main draw: Venus Williams, 43, is there thanks to a wildcard.
It should also be difficult for the other five German men. Yannick Hanfmann, who fought his way furiously into the semi-finals on Mallorca, has to deal directly with top ten player Taylor Fritz, for example. It will be particularly difficult for Tatjana Maria and Jule Niemeier to repeat their tennis fairy tale from last year, which brought them to the semi-finals and quarter-finals. Niemeier plays against French Open finalist Karolina Muchova, Maria has a similarly unpleasant opening opponent in Sorana Cirstea.
More about tennis
Organizer Weindorfer on tennis in Berlin “Unfortunately we don’t have Steffi Graf” tennis tournament in Berlin Lots of happy faces and a few question marks
The ten German pros still hope for the best in Wimbledon, because love-hate-lawn or not: This is still the tennis Mecca. Everyone wants to win here. Behind these venerable club walls on London’s Church Road, where everything is a bit more dignified than on the otherwise colorful and loud tennis tour. Where strictly white is worn and tickets are queued all night long.
Where strawberries are feasted on and Pimm’s punch is sipped. Where advertising is banned and everything is a bit out of date – in the end, Novak Djokovic will probably sink onto the lawn again, draw level with Federer’s eight wins, raise the Grand Slam record to 24 and then eat a few blades of grass with relish. After all, grass isn’t just for cows.
2023-07-01 10:18:47
#Kickoff #Wimbledon #playing #whims #nature
