On Friday, July 5, third round matches (i.e. 1/16 finals) in the men’s and women’s singles at Wimbledon began. The matches played on the outdoor courts started with a two-hour delay, and the reason remained the same: the rain that hit London.
Two Russian players played today. The country’s No. 1 player, Daria Kasatkina, seeded 14, battled with former No. 2 and now world No. 93 Paula Badosa – the Spaniard is competing in a protected ranking. And 20-year-old Diana Schneider faced American Emma Navarro, seeded 19.
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Kasatkina and Badosa scored 2-2 in personal matches. Daria won on clay in Rome 2022 and on hard in San Jose the same year, and Paula won on hard in Sydney 2022 and on clay in Stuttgart 2023. This time the Spaniard took the lead.
Badosa came into the match better than Kasatkina. In the first game she served to love, then broke and confirmed the 3-0. After that, the Russian woman also got involved. Daria took her game to love and in the fifth game she had three break points, but did not take advantage of any of them: 4-1 in favor of the Spaniard. In the sixth game, Paula missed a triple break point, but in the ninth she had to serve to win the set anyway…
At the beginning of the ninth game, when the score was 5:3 in Badosa’s favour, one of the spectators in the stands felt ill. The forced break did not benefit the former second racket of the world, who lost her serve, losing a set point, and in the next game Kasatkina missed a double set point and equalised the score at 5:5. After playing another service game, the tennis players prepared for the tie-break. In it, the athletes played better on the return side than on the serve side. Badosa, at 6:5, did not take advantage of the set point on serve, but closed the game on the second attempt – 7:6 (8:6) in 1 hour and 12 minutes.
Daria Kasatkina in a match with Paula Badosa at Wimbledon 2024
Photo: Francois Nel/Getty Images
At the start of the second game, the breaks were exchanged (1:1). In the first half of the set, Badosa looked a little better. In the fifth game, the Spaniard got a double break point, but did not take advantage of it. But at the end of the match, Kasatkina was stronger. Taking the score at 5:4, the Russian converted the first set point, taking advantage of an inaccuracy in her opponent’s execution: 6:4 in 48 minutes. And the match went to a decisive set.
As in the first two matches, Badosa played more actively than Kasatkina, but also made more mistakes. The fourth and fifth games turned out to be very tenacious, but neither tennis player managed to take advantage of the break points. In the sixth game, Daria made a break, but immediately lost the advantage, after which Paula recovered a double break point and equalized the score 4:4.
In the ninth game, Kasatkina unfortunately gave up her serve again and hit the net on the third break point. And then Badosa served for the match – 7:6 (8:6), 4:6, 6:4 in 2 hours 32 minutes – she could not contain her emotions and burst into tears of joy.
As for the match between Schneider and Navarro, the score was 2-1 in favour of the Russian, including 2-0 without taking into account the junior performances. The American beat the Russian 6-0, 6-2 at Wimbledon junior 2019. Diana won both matches in the adult category that took place already in 2024: the final of the WTA-125 clay tournament in Paris and the semi-final on grass “500” in Bad Homburg. In the latter case, the main trophy finally went to Schneider as well.
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Schneider started the match with a break and gave no reason to doubt that the first set would remain hers. The young Russian, who forced her opponent to make mistakes with her attacks, performed successfully in the service games, even though the first one went through about once in two cases. In the sixth game Diana had some minor problems, but recovered a break point, again thanks to her serve. By this time Schneider already had two breaks and in the eighth game she served to win the match 6-2 in 32 minutes.
Diana Schneider in a match with Emma Navarro at Wimbledon 2024
Photo: Clive Brunskill/Getty Images
In the second set, Schneider improved her first serve (from 52% to 67%), but began to perform worse in the exchanges, which predetermined the result. Diana won only one of her games, so even two breaks in her performance did not save the situation. At the beginning of the match, the tennis players conceded five breaks in a row, and in the end Navarro tied the match 6:3 in 31 minutes. In this set, the Russian committed 11 unforced errors and the American only three.
In the decisive set, Schneider had to take a medical timeout due to arm problems. This happened when the score was 3:2 in Diana’s favour; by that time the players had managed to exchange breaks. A few matches earlier, a doctor had also come to see the Russian, who was complaining about her left knee, but they did not take a break in that episode.
Schneider fought to the very end. After 3:3, the opponents exchanged breaks again and the Russian was in a position to catch up. But Diana had no strength for more. After 4:4, Navarro again took the game on the return (Schneider made a double on break point), and then served to love for the match and won a decisive victory – 2:6, 6:3, 6:4 in 1 hour 55 minutes.
Schneider’s winning streak on grass, which she won in Bad Homburg, was thus interrupted by around seven matches. Diana, the world number 30, is now ranked 26th in the live rankings. Whether she can continue on this path will depend on the performances of her closest rivals.
Wimbledon 2024 will end on July 14. Follow all the events of the “Championship”.
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