Things We Learned on Day Five of 2014 Wimbledon

Amy:

1. Novak Djokovic took a nasty tumble in his match against Gilles Simon today, injuring his shoulder. It seems like it’s nothing to worry about, as Djokovic continued playing and looked fine.

Novak Djokovic already got an ultrasound on his shoulder. “It’s all looking good."

— SI Tennis (@SI_Tennis) June 27, 2014

And then there was this:

John McEnroe, implying that Djokovic may have been exaggerating the extent of his injury, suggests that he takes up acting after tennis.

— Nick Nemeroff (@NNemeroff) June 27, 2014

2. The British tabloid reporters have showed up at Wimbledon. It sounds like Caroline Wozniacki has been handling it professionally. It’s a shame she has to deal with this during a Grand Slam tournament.

Q. "Bluntly, is your game better when Rory's not about?"
CAROLINE WOZNIACKI: "Is that a statement or question?"#Wimbledon

— Ben Rothenberg (@BenRothenberg) June 27, 2014

"My private life has nothing to do with my tennis." -Caroline Wozniacki, dismissing assertion that she's playing better post-Rory.#Wimbledon

— Ben Rothenberg (@BenRothenberg) June 27, 2014

"I think everyone here wants to make me a victim. I'm not a victim." -Caroline Wozniacki, getting still more Rory questions. #Wimbledon

— Ben Rothenberg (@BenRothenberg) June 27, 2014

3. Lindsay wrote a nice piece with a list of guidelines on how to talk about women’s tennis. Hint: this isn’t how you do it.

With all due respects Miss Kvitova & Miss Williams, I know you are both former champs but would you please hurry up & vacate Centre Court

— Barry Flatman (@Barry_FlatmanST) June 27, 2014

Does nobody understand a little attempt at humorous irony? The abuse really does show you for what you are

— Barry Flatman (@Barry_FlatmanST) June 27, 2014

4. The Wimbledon underwear policing seems to have gotten completely out of control.

Cash revealed that some of the men were upset over the rules as well, saying: ‘One of the players was called into the referees’ office because he had blue underwear that showed through when he got sweaty, so he was told not to wear dark underwear. ‘Some of the girls have been told to go back and change their bras and tops because they had slight colour on them. ‘I believe some of the girls didn’t have suitable sports bras and had to go without them. It has absolutely gone ridiculous.’

5. Andy Murray’s match against Roberto Bautista-Agut today reminded me how fun Murray is to watch on grass. His game is perfectly suited for it, even though he doesn’t play the kind of first-strike tennis that one would associate with traditional grass court prowess. He’ll slice and dice everything, and then he’ll pounce and hit a winner once he’s lulled his opponent into submission. So far, he’s looking good, but the real tests will come later.

6. I’m so over parody Twitter accounts, but this tweet is still hilarious:

can I find a crack in his game? that's the question.

— tom berd (@BerdsButt) June 27, 2014

Lindsay:

1. I have a post that may or may not contain coherent thoughts on the Petra Kvitova-Venus Williams clash coming up later, but first I just want to say: WOW. I’m sad, but grateful that I got to watch that match today. I’m also furious that it was only a third-round match. Stupid draws.

2. Gilles Simon lost in straight sets to Novak Djokovic today, but I do think it’s worth noting that Simon hit 18 aces and 122 winners–compared to 6 DFs and 72 UFEs–in nine sets of tennis this week. He (often rightly) gets a reputations as a pusher, but when he’s playing well he’s deceptively aggressive.

Hopefully the fact that he’s finding his form again means we’ll never ever have to see something like this again:

3. Leonardo Mayer is into the fourth round of Wimbledon. LEONARDO Mayer. Not Florian. Before Wimbledon, Leo was 6-11 in his entire career on grass, including Futures and Challengers. He’s a clay lover and he’s never even been to the R16 at the French Open!

His route to the second week wasn’t the easiest, either. He took out Andreas Seppi in the first round and Marcos Baghdatis in the second before getting a tired Andrey Kuznetsov today.

He gets a couple of days off now and then faces Grigor Dimitrov on Monday for a spot in the quarterfinals.

This is all very surprising to me, because the only time I saw Leo play live was when he was on the wrong end of Donald Young snapping his headline-worthy losing streak in the summer of 2012 at the Winston Salem Open.

4. There is absolutely zero reason why Tomas Berdych and Marin Cilic should have continued to play today after 5-5 in the third set. I can very rarely tell that it’s dark with TV filters, but the lighting was dim on television, so it must have been close to nonexistent in person. Clearly with rain in the forecast for tomorrow the organizers were afraid to delay the match a day in case it went to five sets.

Congrats to @cilic_marin …One photo from the match…#true #Wimbledon pic.twitter.com/c1RHjwwg6r

— Tomáš Berdych (@tomasberdych) June 27, 2014

But that’s just ridiculous. So much is on the line for these guys, they should at least be able to see the lines clearly! I think the new rule should be that if it’s not light enough for Hawk-Eye, play should be stopped unless the players overrule that decision. (That way there’s some flexibility.)

However, it’s still stupid that Wimbledon doesn’t have some lights. I understand that Wimbledon Village doesn’t want to be kept up at night or disturbed–that’s fine. Keep the curfew in place and don’t schedule night matches. But at least give day-session matches that go long a chance to finish up properly if the weather cooperates. Traditions don’t have to change. Nobody has to lose sleep. But common sense needs to prevail.

All that said, kudos to Marin Cilic. He is so much fun to watch when he’s playing well, and boy do I wish he played well more often. He gets Chardy next, which means he should in theory be back in the quarterfinals.

Precious.

5.  Scattered, non-insightful observations: Simona Halep did not play very well against Lesia Tsurenko, but it was nice to see her gut out a win when she wasn’t not playing her best–same goes for Grigor Dimitrov over Alex Dolgopolov.

HUGE win for BZS over Li Na–I’ll be honest that I’ve overlooked BZS in the past, but she’s fun to watch and was clutch today.

Is Jerzy Janowicz back? Ugh, you just never know with him. Still, great to see him into the third round. I was not expecting that. (Those sunglasses are awful, though.)

I was so taken by Venus and Petra that I didn’t even register Aga’s demolition of LDB, Tsonga’s straight-set win over Wang, Chardy’s victory over Stakhovsky or Feli’s triumph. Good for them. WHY DOES SO MUCH HAPPEN AT ONCE?

Also, Lucie and Caro looked fantastic today. I love it.

6. Above, Amy gave a very current example of how not to talk about women’s tennis. In doing research for an article that will be up later in the weekend, I came across one from Wimbledons past. It’s about the women’s semifinals that year: Serena’s epic win over Elena Dementieva and Venus’s thrashing of Dinara Safina. Guess which match this article decided to focus on?

WARNING: Only click if you want to be super angry.

No seriously. I warned you.

7. Spot the egregious error. Sigh. I rarely seriously get annoyed by mistakes–anyone who works with me knows that I make plenty–but that’s just ridiculous.

8. I know I’ve been slacking on the quotes, but I’ll try and make it up to you soon. #sorri

9. Random tweets I favorited today:

"Mo Momo, No Problems.” The title of Andy Murray’s follow-up single to “Autograph”.

— Courtney Nguyen (@FortyDeuceTwits) June 27, 2014

They do let some stupid people into the grounds. And they're always the loudest ones.

— Neil Harman (@NeilHarmanTimes) June 27, 2014

@PseudoFed selfish lad…! But thank you … See you tomorrow

— Stanislas Wawrinka (@stanwawrinka) June 27, 2014