Serena Williams’ march into the semi-finals and Johanna Konta’s defeat are the main stories in the international media.
Although Williams, a 23-times Grand Slam singles winner, overcame the in-form Alison Riske in three sets on Monday, The Guardian is not so sure she can go all the way.
“The conclusion from her neurotic mess of a victory over Riske is that the spells when Williams looks ready to win her 24th major on Saturday are not enough to extinguish the impression that she is still hindered by the knee injuries that have disrupted her season,” says the paper.
Williams was both “brilliant in patches and downright awful in others” which makes her “vulnerable against an opponent with the nerve to take advantage.”
Konta’s error-strewn, straight-sets defeat to Czech Barbora Strycova is food for thought for the British newspapers.
The Daily Telegraph points out that “there is clearly something about Czechs that stops the Johanna Konta bounce.”
Last month, Konta was beaten by another crafty Czech, Marketa Vondrousova, in the semi-final of Roland-Garros in Paris. “It was hard to know which of the two failures was the more dispiriting,” the Telegraph says.
The Daily Mirror calls Konta’s defeat “particularly disappointing” as it came after she came back from a set down in both previous rounds. But the Mirror also gives credit to her opponent, who used “her full repertoire of shots and court craft to prevent Konta from getting into a rhythm.”
The Guardian’s Wimbledon diary reports on the England women’s football team visiting the All England Club. “The Lionesses were out in force on Tuesday, dominating the Royal Box like they did the first half against Norway,” it says. “Not only did the players enjoy some top-class tennis, they also experienced refereeing technology that works efficiently.”
Although the women’s tournament has been full of drama, the men’s event has been devoid of any big surprises. “There are no challengers to the brilliant Big Three - men's tennis could do with a shake,” headlines the Daily Telegraph, pointing out Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic hold a combined 53 Grand Slam singles titles.
The Evening Standard takes a look at the data revolution gathering pace in tennis. “Brain, set and match! How Novak Djokovic and Co invest in intelligence to get edge over Wimbledon rivals,” it headlines. Federer relies on San Diego-based firm Golden Set Analytics, while Djokovic has Australian Craig O’Shannessy in his corner as a strategy coach.
Nadal’s new coach, Carlos Moya, also uses statistics to help the Spaniard get the edge over his opponents. The stats they use during the Wimbledon Fortnight come from IBM, “Wimbledon’s IT supplier for the past 30 years, which has gathered 63 million data points on its database since 1990,” the paper says.
And finally, German newspaper Der Tagesspiegel looks back at 9 July, 1989 “the biggest day in German tennis” when Boris Becker and Steffi Graf won the men’s and women’s singles titles. The double West German victory triggered a huge tennis boom, which sadly didn’t last. Since the days of Graf and Becker, the German tennis federation has lost close to half of its membership. It currently has 1.4 million active members, about the same as in 1980, the paper says.
