Wimbledon Day 4 Recap: Down go Top 10 seeds Ruud and Fritz

Thursday’s action at Wimbledon was fast and furious. There was finally some consistently good weather and the tournament was able to push through a lot of matches. However, it was not much fun going for Top 10 seeds Casper Ruud and Taylor Fritz as both were upset in 5 setters.

Ruud fell to the local hero, Liam Broady 6-4, 3-6, 4-6, 6-3, 6-0. The 4th-seeded Norwegian clearly checked out in the 5th set as he appeared to lose all hope after blowing his set lead. Fair play to Broady who kept pushing and deserved his victory.

The number 9 seed Taylor Fritz fell to Mikael Ymer 3-6, 2-6, 6-3, 6-4, 6-2. Blowing a 2 sets to none lead is hard enough, let alone against an unseeded opponent. but American Fritz will be crushed by this result and the loss to the Swede.

Recapping Day 4 at Wimbledon

No. 19 seed Alexander Zverev was finally able to complete his 1st round match as he dispatched Gijs Brouwer in straight sets. Fellow seeds Grigor Dimitrov and Frances Tiafoe both booked 3rd round places via straight-set victories on Thursday.

Stan “The Man” Wawrinka set up a blockbuster matchup with Novak Djokovic by taking down the 29-seed Tomas Martin Etcheverry 6-3, 4-6, 6-4, 6-2.

Defending champion Elena Rybakina marched on in her title defense by taking care of a tricky opponent in Alize Cornet. Doing so in straight sets will be a nice bonus. 19-seed Victoria Azarenka looks to be finding her form as she hammered the Argentine Nadia Podoroska 6-3, 6-0.

Elina Svitolina showed it isn’t going to take her long to get back to the top of the Women’s game as she sealed a 3rd round spot by disposing of the 28-seed Elise Mertens in 3 sets.

A plethora of seeds fell on the women’s side on Thursday. No. 10 Barbora Krejcikova, No. 12 Veronika Kudermetova, No. 16 Karolina Muchova and No. 17 Jelena Ostapenko all went down before the 3rd round.

Sofia Kenin backed up her upset win over Coco Gauff by winning comfortably 6-4, 6-3 over Wang Xinyu. Former Wimbledon finalist Matteo Berrettini renewed his affection for Wimbledon as he defeated his fellow Italian Lorenzo Sonego in 4 sets.

Recent titlist Alexander Bublik maintained his strong form as he blitzed the American J.J. Wolf 6-3, 7-6 (5), 6-0. A nice result on the American side saw the 16-seed Tommy Paul fight past the returning Milos Raonic in a tough four-set battle.

The final match on Center Court saw the one and only Andy Murray squaring off with the No. 5 seed Stefanos Tsitsipas. The level of tennis brought by both men was tremendous to see. Tsitispas, who had to scrape past Dominic Thiem yesterday, showed good fight to take the opening set in a tiebreak.

There was nothing to separate the two as Murray responded by taking the second set, also in a tiebreak. The 2-time Wimbledon champion got an early break in the 3rd, and both men held serve until the end of the set. With the 11 pm curfew closing in, Murray wanted to get the set done.

However, with set point on his serve, he was in the midst of a rally when Tsitsipas blasted a forehand behind Murray, who in his efforts to stop and go back, let out an audible yell of pain and crumpled to the ground.

While he would stand up moments later, he looked to be walking gingerly. However, he was still able to hammer a serve down the middle to secure the set. That was when play was called for the day. Probably for the benefit of Tsitispas’ mental state, and perhaps for Murray’s abductor scare. The match was suspended with Murray leading 6-7, 7-6, 6-4.

Friday should bring some more intense action at Wimbledon as the 3rd round begins to take more shape in both draws.