Upset Wednesday at Wimbledon as Djokovic and Murray Fall
If you missed the men's quarterfinal today from Wimbledon, I'm sorry.
In one of the most exciting days in tennis I've seen at a Grand Slam, the #1 and #2 seeds, Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic both fell to heavy underdogs, Sam Querrey of the United States, and Tomas Berdych respectively.
The victory by the 24th seed Querrey puts him into his first Grand Slam semifinal in his career, and for the second straight year, Querrey was able to knockout the defending Wimbledon champion (he knocked out Novak Djokovic in 2016).
To just give you some perspective on how historic today was: "for the first time since 2003, a top-two men's player will not be in the Wimbledon final."
Let's take a closer look at each of these matches and what they mean to the tennis world, and to the future of the sport as a whole:
Sam Querrey defeats Andy Murray in a five set thriller
Andy Murray was clearly struggling all match with a hip injury, but it was far from easy for the surging Querrey. Murray jumped out to a quick one set lead taking the opener 6-3, and was up a break in the second set before Querrey came storming back to break the 2-time Wimbledon champion twice to take the set 6-4.
After a back and forth third set, Murray was able to pull it out in a tiebreaker, 7-4. In his past Grand Slam efforts, Querrey would've likely bowed out after a quick break to lose in the fourth set. That was not the case today, as the American lost just two games in the final two sets, and shocked the Centre Court crowd.
Sam crushed 27 aces past Murray, and won 84% of his first serve points as the man from Great Britain just couldn't get past his inability to move with his right hip bothering him.
Murray was quick to make note of his ailing hip in his post match press conference, saying of the laboring problem, "I’ve been dealing with it for a very long time in my career. As you get older, things get a little tougher to manage than they are when you’re younger. There’s a bit more wear and tear.”
Querrey will face the 7th seed Marin Cilic who was able to grind out a five setter defeating Gilles Muller.
Novak Djokovic retires just 2 games into the second set
What are the odds that both the 1 and 2 seed go out on the same day, and both suffer injuries which could prove to be serious? If I were a betting man, I definitely wouldn't have predicted this.
The Djoker was forced to retire after losing the opening set 7-6(7-2 in the tiebreaker) and trailing 2-0 in the second due to an ailing elbow injury which he said was too much to overcome.
"I haven't felt this much pain since I've had this injury," said Djokovic. "It is unfortunate I had to finish Wimbledon in this way. If someone feels bad, it is me."
It was clear that Novak couldn't continue in the match and as former player John Lloyd points out, "We called it pretty quickly - he couldn't serve above 115 mph from the start. Once Berdych hung in there and won the first set, Novak knew that there was no chance."
Novak also said that he might take a long break from the sport in order to rehab possibly opening the door for Roger Federer to dominate the tennis world.
Wow wouldn't that be something special.
Federer will face Berdych on Friday, the same day Sam Querrey will try to continue his dream run and make his first Grand Slam final of his career, as he'll face Cilic.
