By Tony Fairbairn at Wimbledon
- Novak Djokovic cruised past Thanasi Kokkinakis to reach the second round
- Anett Kontaveit went out to Jule Niemeier and cites lack of preparation due to COVID
- Kyle Edmund prepares for his long awaited return to a tennis court in the mixed doubles
LONDON, ENGLAND – Novak Djokovic and Anett Kontaveit react to their contrasting results today while Kyle Edmund spoke to the press about his long-awaited return to tennis in the mixed doubles.
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Djokovic cruises through, Kontaveit’s struggles continue
We start our day three talking points with the top seeds in both draws that competed today as world number one Novak Djokovic and second seed in the women’s draw Anett Kontaveit took to court today.
Starting with Djokovic, the Serb was dominant over Thanasi Kokkinakis as he produced a thumping 6-1 6-4 6-2. Djokovic was more dialled-in than his opening round match and was clinical in his performance as he dominated from start to finish. The top seed’s two hour display showed why he is the defending champion as he looks to win a 21st grand slam title at SW19.
After the match Djokovic spoke to the press about his performance and any questions that he might have played better today because the opponent was from Australia given what happened to him in the country at the start of the year:
“I think the quality of tennis was really high from my side. Much better than the first match performance,” Djokovic said.
“I knew that I had to start off well today because I was facing a really tricky opponent, someone that serves well, has big serve, big forehand. I didn’t want to give him too much time. I played with not too many unforced errors from back of the court. Whenever I needed to put the return in, I did. So all in all just a really, really satisfying performance.
“My intensity was basically like any other match really. I just tried to execute the tactics and game plan and do what I can to win the match. I did not have any extra intensity or desire to win this match just because Thanasi is Australian.”
Djokovic will look to bring a similar intensity when he plays compatriot and 25th seed Miomir Kecmanovic on Friday.
It was a completely different story for Kontaveit though who was well and truly beaten by Jule Niemeier today on Court One. The Estonian only won four games in the victory as the German produced the best performance of her career to make the last 32. However concerning times for Kontaveit who has been struggling with health issues recently and the Estonian once again addressed those and spoke about what’s next for her:
“I thought my opponent played a very good match. It was hard for me to control her big shots, because, you know, I haven’t had the opportunity to prepare as well as I would have liked to. Yeah, it was just tough out there. She played a really good match, and that’s about it,” Kontaveit explained.
“I was thinking I wasn’t going to come if I didn’t think I could play a match or finish a match. I actually started feeling better in practice. I added tennis. Already felt pretty good. But it’s still — I had, I don’t know, a week to play tennis before a Grand Slam, so of course I’m not in the physical shape that I would like to be in.”
“It depends also how I’m feeling every day with fatigue and everything. But I’m thinking, you know, I’m going to go back home after, you know, depending how I do in doubles, of course, but after the tournament here and start doing fitness, I think, straightaway. Then I think, I don’t know, I think three, four weeks of good training will help me get back in decent shape.”
Kontaveit will look to get back in shape for the US hard court swing as she looks for a strong finish to the season.
Edmund prepares for return, Peniston looks to future
The other big story that happened today was actually off-court as former British number one Kyle Edmund gave a press conference ahead of his return to action at Wimbledon. The Brit will team up with compatriot Olivia Nicholls to take on American duo Coco Gauff and Jack Sock. Speaking in his press conference, Edmund admitted it felt good to be back and detailed his injuries over the last few years:
“It’s great, to be honest. I have been out a long time. So for me, just being back playing a match, you know, to start with, that’s, yeah, feels like a reward for me just to be back and playing,” Edmund said in a press conference.
“In terms of like the actual details, I don’t really want to say exactly what I had, but I basically had damage on my knee, and the first one was actually November 2020. It was pretty much when the season ended that I wanted just to straightaway get something done. The idea was to sort of come back for that year, but I just never really recovered well enough and kind of didn’t address the problem that I was feeling, just ultimately pain in my knee.
“March obviously last year I had my sort of big procedure. That was when it took a long time of recovery to get back, just very slow to start off with, having to go through the whole steps of everything. Yeah, just was feeling improvement, not at the sort of rate that I wanted to. Yeah, it was just taking long, but ultimately I had to be patient, because the nature of the operation required me to be patient with it, but it’s obviously hard to do that. It was probably February this year where I started to feel more of an improvement.
“So the plan was obviously to keep rehabbing, keep being patient with it. But I could feel like now I can see a little bit more light at the end of the tunnel, I can have more of a feel when I’m going to play. The plan was to play at the start of the grass. About eight weeks ago now I’d probably say today, I had to have a small procedure because the knee flared up again. The recovery has been very good from that, which was the first time where I had a procedure and the recovery was quicker. So that’s why I was sort of basically able to play the mixed, otherwise if the timeline that was sort of set after that, I wouldn’t be able to play the grass. So it’s basically a bonus to be here.”
Edmund’s road to recovery has been psychologically and physically traumatic with the Brit having to deal with multiple setbacks. Edmund also told the press that he wasn’t ever going to retire but was contemplating if he would ever compete at the top of the game again and also spoke about his future plans:
“I never thought about retiring, as extreme as that. But I was struggling to really see how I was going to play in terms of the way I was feeling, just I need to be able to play best of five sets and be on court for three, four hours against the best guys in the world, throwing my body around,” Edmund said.
“At that time I definitely could not have done that. It was hard to see in that way. It was kind of like the old cliché, everyone is like, You’ve just got to keep going, it will come, the patience will pay off. I was struggling to see it in that way. I just knew regardless, I didn’t feel like I had control on it. It was just out of my control. I was trying a lot of things. But the only thing I could control was the effort to try and get back.
“So that was what I was trying to do. In some way I’m here now and hitting. Going to be on a match court in some way. In America, that’s the plan is to play singles over there.”
Edmund’s recovery is not complete yet but it is good to see him back on a tennis court and hopefully British tennis fans can see him competing regularly on the tour again.
Finally Ryan Peniston’s dream summer has ended after a convincing straight sets defeat to Steve Johnson. Nevertheless it has been a sensation summer for Peniston and the Brit spoke about why he lost today and what the future holds for him:
“Yeah, he’s a tricky player, and he’s obviously made fourth round here before, so he knows his way around the grass court. Yeah, he served really well today. He just played, yeah, too good for me,” Peniston said about Johnson.
“I’ll definitely take, yeah, the last few weeks on the grass forward and with a lot of confidence. Hopefully, yeah, I’ll be able to push on for the rest of the year. Yeah, I mean, I’d love to play all of the Grand Slams, all main draw in the Grand Slams. That would be great. Yeah, to crack top hundred, higher, would be amazing.”
Penistion’s next goal will be to have his ranking high enough so he can enter the US Open main draw automatically.
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