No. 2 seed and two-time champion Rafael Nadal will be back in Wimbledon action when he goes up against Mikhail Kukushkin on Thursday. Nick Kyrgios and Robin Haase are also aiming for a place in the last 32.
Mikhail Kukushkin vs. (2) Rafael Nadal
Nadal and Kukushkin will be going head-to-head for the fourth time in their careers and for the second time at Wimbledon when they meet again in the second round on Thursday. All three of their previous encounters have gone Nadal’s way, he is 7-1 in total sets, and he has breadsticked Kukushkin on a whopping five occasions. The two veterans most recently faced each other at this same event four years ago, when Nadal prevailed 6-7(4), 6-1, 6-1, 6-1.
Almost no one has been competitive with the Spaniard of late, although that can obviously be chalked up at least somewhat to the fact that the clay-court season just came and went–with Nadal capturing titles in Monte-Carlo, Barcelona, Rome, and at the French Open. The world No. 1 maintained his fine form in his first official grass-court match of the season, hammering Dudi Sela 6-3, 6-3, 6-2 on Monday. Kukushkin advanced by beating Vasek Pospisil 6-4, 3-6, 6-2, 6-3, improving to 4-1 in main-draw matches on grass in 2018. The 77th-ranked Kazakh defeated Alex De Minaur, David Ferrer, and Kyle Edmund in Eastbourne before succumbing to eventual champion Mischa Zverev in the semifinals. Kukushkin is a capable competitor on this surface, but–as his past woes in this matchup suggest–he does not wield enough power to hit Nadal off any kind of court.
Pick: Nadal in 3 losing 8-10 games
[polldaddy poll=10046863]
(15) Nick Kyrgios vs. Robin Haase
Kyrgios and Haase took similar routes to the Wimbledon second round at the expense of dangerous grass-court players. In a somewhat expected serving duel with Denis Istomin, Kyrgios pocketed the only break of the entire day midway through the fourth set and got the job done 7-6(3), 7-6(4), 6-7(5), 6-3. Haase held off Marius Copil 7-6(0), 7-5, 4-6, 7-6(4). The result is their second-ever showdown on Thursday, with Kyrgios having won their only previous contest 6-3, 6-4 on the red clay of Estoril in 2015.
On the opposite side of the draw from Roger Federer and Marin Cilic, Kyrgios is a trendy pick to reach the final–and he just may do it if he can remain healthy. Returns on grass are so far encouraging, as he missed the clay-court swing but got right back in gear to reach semifinals in Stuttgart (lost to Federer in a third-set tiebreaker) and Queen’s Club (lost to Cilic in two tiebreakers). Haase played all three weeks in the buildup to Wimbledon and made second-round exits on all three occasions (to Bernard Tomic in ‘s-Hertogenbosch, to Roberto Bautista Agut in Halle, and to Guillermo Garcia-Lopez in Halle). Another round-two ouster is likely in the cards, because Kyrgios’ serve should be too big in the pressure moments and Haase is not as skilled in tiebreakers as his result against Copil suggests.
Pick: Kyrgios in 3
[polldaddy poll=10047003]
Imagine if there were 2 nicks!!
And if they had to play against each other!!😀😀
That was a reply to mira!
So, the winners of Halle, Eastbourne and Queens were sent packing in the first or second round. Kvitova is out, too! Is there even a point anymore in participting in the warm ups?
The first two rounds have been a carnage. But Cilic out against Pella?? I’m speechless! What happened?? I haven’t seen the match.
Nobody left now who could challenge Fed on his way into the final. I don’t see Raonic doing it. He has been slumping for so long now.
Gil Müller is out, too, btw. Against a fellow thirtysomething aging journeyman, lol!
Muller is injured 🙁 His elbow has been bothering him since late last year. So he hasn’t really been able to compete at a high level much this season.
Thanks for the info, Benny. I’m not really following Müller.
will still #peak in Atlanta
winner of antalya is also out. Dzumhur. Fed is the only grass court champion of 2018 left in the draw
Why isn’t Moya with Rafa? I’m not saying it’s good or bad. But I’d like to know the reason. Is Roig the better advisor on grass courts?
Moya originally signed on with Rafa as a part time travelling coach and part time teaching coach at the RN Academy. He left Raonic because he wanted more time with his wife and 3 young kids. Moya was with Rafa for the AO and the entire Euro clay court season so it’s Roig’s turn now. 🙂 Roig usually travels with Rafa for the 2 NA summer hard court masters. I assume Moya will be with Rafa for the USO if not before, but we’ll have to wait and see.
Ramara, it makes sense that Moya isn’t with Rafa all the time. But as his main coach I would’ve expected that he is always with Rafa at the slams! Again, I don’t know if it even matters if Roig or Moya is with Rafa at Wimby. But without more info I surprises me, that Moya isn’t there. That’s all.
The grass is so slippery, Sasha slips and falls too. So dangerous, players must move carefully on grass.
A few interesting results today: Shapo is out – but Tsitsipas is through to the third round! Surprising. The young guy makes big strides! And Gulbis of all people won another five setter and is in the third round. He seems to be slowly getting his game somewhat together again after years of early disappointments. His attitude has always been heavily criticised. But to be fair – he has been injured a lot, too. Stringing together a few wins at the slams would be a nice change for him and give him some breathing space since his ranking will go up a bit.
I’m not surprised about Tsisitpas making it through to R3, he has the game to play on grass (on clay too).
Shapo faced a tough opponent in Paire, who had a MP vs Fed at Halle if I’m not wrong. Shapo is too going for broke I feel, so his game is high risk, even though with his big serve and net rushing tendency, he has the game that suits the grass surface.
Yes, Paire is no slouch on grass!
Watching Tsitsipas executing a successful Becker dive was inspiring☺This guy has the right attitude.
Joel Drucker wrote a very nice article about the Tsitsipas-Donaldson match over at tennis.com. Well worth reading!
Yeah, I’ve read that, a bit of exaggeration here and there I feel but nice when it’s about my new fave from the next gen.
Looks like an upset could be brewing in that Fritz/Zverev match. Wouldn’t surprise me at all if Mr. Masters 1000 lost early at a slam again 😂
Benny, it’s far too early to suspect an upset in the making. It’s a fairly even match and it may not finish today…
What’s with Sasha, why is he slipping and falling so often on grass. I thought he can move well on grass?
Well, some say that Sasha ist too tall for a tennis player after all. He moves well for his size, but still… and he hasn’t been in great grass form this year. His RG exploits seem to have taken their toll.
They just suspended play with Fritz up two sets to one on Zverev.
Rafa’s PM interview
http://www.wimbledon.com/en_GB/video/interviews.html
Hasn’t Rafa had dissonances in the past with Carlos Bernardes? They don’t seem to be exactly each other’s favorite person. Hasn’t Rafa even requested to get a break from Bernardes for a while?
I don’t have a strong opinion one way or another about the time violation call during the match – but calling a time violation even before the match properly started seems to be a tad excessive.
Watch Rafa’s post-match interview that I posted above re his tiff with Bernardes..
Watch the video Nadline 10 so kindly linked for us. Rafa mentions the incident – he’d taken a bathroom break to change and put his shorts on backward. He got out to the court before realizing it and asked Bernardes to let him go back and fix his “wardrobe malfunction”. Bernardes refused – Rafa did a very neat job of wrapping a big towel around his lower portions and fixed his shorts without indecency. But he was really angry about it and told the umpire he’d ask for someone else to call his matches, which is a player’s right. Eventually the ban wore off or was called off and Bernardes has officiated at Rafa’s matches again. He is pretty quick to call time violations though.
Does Bernades only try to discipline Rafa with time warnings or does he call out other players a lot as well? For a while I had the impression that Rafa was a specific target for many umpires although there are many other offenders as well who get away with it because they aren’t under special observation.
As I said before, I thought it was a tad excessive that Bernardes started dispensing time violation calls before the match even properly started.
Oh well, Rafa got through the match unharmed, so all is well so far. De Minaur makes me a bit nervous, though, because Rafa sometimes experiences difficulties against players he has never encounterd before.
Taylor Fritz!!!
Wow just wow!
Zverev very very lucky the match is suspended!
Yup, Sasha has another opportunity tomorrow to prove his five-set prowess 😉
He didn’t seem to be comfortable at all today.
And Muguruza is on a fast exit lane. The women’s competition has been crazy so far.
lol, indeed! But i hope Zverev can pull it out
should have moved it to Centre
Oh dear, Muguruza is out too?
Sasha may follow suit but he’s saved by darkness. His match will continue tomorrow.
Maybe suspending play will help Zverev. But Fritz had been playing well, looking quite relaxed in the match. He had the momentum.
I just saw Mugu lose to someone I never heard of. The top women’s seeds keep getter big knocked out.
outrageous result. how did Mugu lose?
Just finished watching the match, although I didn’t get to see much of the second set. With that caveat, I would say that that is one of the most misleading scorelines that one will see. Straight sets, no TBs, but at no point did I feel Nadal was in control of that match. Kukushkin dictated much of the play, even on Rafa’s serve. He hit plenty of winners and was even decently consistent. But Nadal won almost all of the big points, and a lot of those were very weak UEs by Kukushkin.
I thought Nadal would run away with the match after going up 3-0 in the first. But Kush came back and it had all the makings of a TB until he basically gifted the set to Rafa with a couple of bad misses on putaway type shots.
In the 3rd set Kush was up a break 3-1, at which point Rafa played a terrific game, the best one I saw him play all match. I’m not sure why he didn’t play with that kind of aggression more often. His BH slice doesn’t do much, and if I were him I’d hit the inside out or inside in FH at every opportunity; it’s such a devastating shot, even on grass. Again it looked like a TB until Kush played a meek game to be broken and then Rafa served it out.
Basically, I thought Nadal was mediocre, especially on serve, but that Kukushkin never had the self-belief that he could actually win. He forgot that he wasn’t playing Rafa on clay!
I didn’t see Nadal’s 1st round match. Was it at this level? If he can’t improve on this, I predict he will lose to deMinaur in the next round. The thing is, I can’t believe he can’t play better than this. He must know it on some level, because I don’t remember him ever showing so much outward frustration on court as he did today.
He had better call Moyer back!
The first few rounds at a major are always tough for even the top players, as they need time to get used to the courts and the lower ranked opponents often play out of their skin, the match of their lives, for fear of losing with humiliating scorelines to these top players.
Fed was taken to five sets by Falla in his opening match at Wimbledon in 2010, we’re talking about Fed at Wimbledon! I think all the top players are well aware of the danger and the pressure they’ll face in the first few rounds.
Sasha really needs to up his level tomorrow, if not it may be another early departure for him at a slam.
I’m glad Tsitsipas came through his five setter against Donaldson,played over two days; at least he didnt falter when going the distance after seeing his two sets lead evaporated. Lets see how Sasha respond tomorrow, in his case being down two sets to one.
indeed!
My respect for Tsitsi grew immensely. Unlike Cilic, who couldn’t cope with the evaporation of his two-set lead, Tsitsi did show a lot of passion and it paid off. And if he recovered physically, he has a good chance against Fabbiano to continue his Wimby run. I really hope that he turns out to be the real deal after we have seen so many young guns crumble under the weight of expectation.
And Rafa actually thinks he played better against Kukushkin than against Sela! Since Rafa never sees his performances through rose-tinted glasses we should take this assessment seriously.
I think Rafa knew Kukushkin would be a tougher opponent than Sela and so he had expected a tough match. I think he’s happy that he won the match in straight sets.
Kukushkin hit hard flat shots and the ball bounced low making it tough to return those shots (Rafa said it himself). A player hitting that way is always hard to deal with if he also hits with precision.
Rafa used quite a bit of his varieties to deal with Kukushkin as the match went on, varying the pace and placement of his second serves especially when he needed his second serve so often. Rafa couldn’t serve consistently well but when he needed to, he served well to bail himself out of troubles, saving so many BPs along the way.
I think he was affected by the TV warning and lost his serve in the third set but he’s good enough to regroup after losing his serve and broke back immediately. Rafa could think and problem solve his way out of troubles, he just has to hurry up to prevent such tv warnings.
What about Fed losing to Stakhovsky in the second round at the 2013 Wimbledon? Anyone remember that one?
It’s amazing how someone who is a diehard Fed fan and not a Rafa fan, can see his match with Kukushkin. You just have to shake your head. The point is to win in the early rounds. I remember when Rafa had back-to-back five setters against the likes of Petz and Haase. He was two sets to one down in each match. So Rafa has had his tough matches in the early rounds at Wimbledon. It’s not like a Petz or Haase were high ranked players. Rafa had to battle through those matches just to get through the first week. Of course, we all know that Rafa won Wimbledon that year in 2010.
So e people spend way too much time dissecting and microanalyzing matches of players they do not like. Much better for a Fed fan to stick to waxing poetic about his most recent match!
🙄
Well, NNY, a few die-hard Rafa fans on this site saw his match pretty much the way I did. He served poorly, played with very little aggression, and frankly got lucky that his opponent missed some fairly easy shots on big points.
I did end my saying that I can’t believe he can’t play better. Maybe he will, but if not I think his tournament will be over soon, probably next round.
About Stakhovsky, who Rafa fans love to bring up, two points. First, Fed played awesome that day. He hit 56 winners to 13 UE, better than the other day against Lacko! Second, however, Stakhovsky played almost perfectly, much better than did any of the low-ranked players who beat Nadal at Wimbledon. In fact, he played better than just about anyone on grass, ever. He hit 72 winners to 17 UE, and described his play as “magic.”
Try to find another match where the *loser* hit 43 more winners than UE. It was an incredibly high quality match, which happened to involve a lowly ranked player in the second round.
http://www.tennis.com/pro-game/2013/06/federer-suffers-earliest-loss-slam-10-years-stakhovsky/48093/
Joe, dont tell me the likes of Kyrgios, Rosol, Brown or Muller didn’t play well to beat Rafa! They too did play well and all matches went the distance. You talked about how great Stak played, as if Rafa’s opponents didn’t play well to beat Rafa!
Rafa looked more passive because his serve wasn’t working well but he varied the way he played by giving Kukushkin different looks; Kukushkin didn’t beat himself, he was beaten by Rafa fair and square. It’s not like he had MP vs Rafa, unlike Paire vs Fed at Halle, where Paire really beat himself!
I won’t say Rafa was playing well, but just enough to win in straight sets; and he felt he was playing better than his first match, recognizing that Kukushkin was a tougher opponent than Sela.
Well, that’s good if he improved compared to how he played against Sela. But I’m sorry, I just didn’t think Rafa played well at all. Kukushkin did play well (for him), except for the big points. If he had played better in those big points, I think it would have at least not have been a straight sets win for Nadal.
The most obvious problem is the serve, which is so important on grass. Rafa just wasn’t really getting any easy service games, at least in the sets I saw (1 and 3; I gather he was better in set 2). We’ll see if he improves in his next match, but I really think he will have to if he is to advance.
I didn’t mean to say that Nadal’s opponents didn’t play well, they did. Especially Rosol in the 5th set. But I really think Stakhovsky played an insane match that day against Federer. I mean, his winners/UE ratio is just about unheard of. It’s a shame he never was able to follow it up.
Nobody said Stak didn’t play well to beat Fed, we mentioned Stak (or Falla in my case) because as great as Fed is/was, he would also get into troubles at times, so why are people so harsh on Rafa and expect him to play well from the get go?
Don’t forget, Rafa didn’t play any warm up tournament on grass, and he had just completed his heavy schedule on clay three weeks ago and was coming back from injury prior to that.
I’m already very pleased with how he didn’t drop a set in his first two matches and was clutch enough to save so many BPs, and didn’t falter while serving for his matches.
It’s onwards and upwards for Rafa, I believe he’s glad he need not go the distance in his two matches so far. I believe he’s also careful not to slip and fall on grass and get injured. The grass is slippery and I saw many players slipped and fell (Sasha fell at least three times yesterday!).
Rafa could serve better as shown by how he served in some of his service games, it’s just not consistently. One thing positive, he could serve well enough when needed to save so many BPs.
Regarding his slices, he has some good CC slices, it’s only those where he sliced straight down the centre of the court that were easy takings for Kukushkin, I guess Rafa was just trying to change the pace to give himself more time to get into position, not wanting to give Kukushkin chances to hit his flat shots. It’s just that those that went straight at Kukushkin were badly executed, more floating than those which went CC, allowing Kukushkin to redirect them at will.
I saw that Fed Statoskhy match and Fed played well, nothing wrong in how he played, he tried everything he could including whacking a ball at Statoskhy :-). Sergie just played out of his skin.
And just like that the highest seed Fed can face on his way into another Wimby final is….Kevin Anderson, lol! Reminds me of something.
And the Djoker has become the betting favorite just after Fed and before Rafa. Can’t even say it’s unwarranted. The Djoker has played just fine so far. I have a hunch that most of Fed’s more dangerous challengers are huddled together in the bottom half of the draw, which looks way more interesting to me than the top half.
There is Kyrgios too, I’m just waiting to see how far Kyrgios could go this time. If he goes far, he may meet Djoko in the QF and that will be interesting as he already has two wins over Djoko so far.
If Kyrgios surprises us by staying focused, I think he will beat anyone including Sasha or Fritz and Kei in that section. Who knows, maybe Kyrgios making the final is not something impossible this time, but he won’t win it all as once he sees Fed across the net, he’ll start making more errors as he not only succumb to Fed but also to Fed’s unrelenting supporters (who really got to him during their Miami match last year).
Wimbledon crowd would not be as awful as Miami crowd. Kyrgios usually doesn’t let a crowd get to him but that Miami crowd was too much, one of the worst (if not the worst) I’ve seen. That said, I actually picked Kyrgios to reach the final and lose to Fed in four.
All matches now onwards are going to be banana skins for Rafa. He better be sharp and well tuned. The 3rd round will be against Minaur who is a 19 year old and will play fearlessly with nothing to lose. If Rafa gets through that, maybe Foginini. DElpo in QF who will offer Rafa far more challenge than at clay. Novak/Kyrgios in semi will be a potboiler and the Fed in final. It is a very very tough road to Wimby 18. Hope Rafa is very sharp .
I would like to see Rafa get through de Minaur to play Fognini. But you’re right; Nadal is looking at a tough road if he has to play all of those guys. Then again, seeds are dropping like flies so far, so he may not play those players (for one of two reasons!).
I think Rafa is ready for the 19 yo kid. Rafa didn’t play badly. In 2014 he lost to Kyrgios in four sets but he needed four sets to beat each of his first three rounds opponents – Klizan, Rosol and Kukushkin.
I doubt this 19 yo kid is better than Kyrgios in 2014, yeah he may hit flat shots and moves well on grass but what he lacks is court craft. Rafa will have too much court craft for him, and it’s also never easy playing against Rafa for the first time.
Frankly I’m not worried about Foggy on grass, maybe Vesley will offer more challenge. As for Delpo, he serves very well but Feli not exactly a great returner of serves. If Rafa reaches the QF, he’ll be hard to beat even for Delpo.
I feel the real challenge (if Rafa can get that far) is Djoko or Kyrgios. If Rafa can reach the SF, he’ll really need to play his best and be very focused if he wants to beat Djoko or Kyrgios.
We may be getting to far ahead of ourselves, it’s one match at a time, just hope Rafa beats the boy with no complications to retain his no.1 ranking. The Wimbledon title, that can wait, let Rafa wins his matches first, one by one.
Just seen the highlights and can see that Rafa was definitely pumped up.
Hid body language is the best sign that he means business , hope his confidence mounts up and that the dodges injuries
Fritz lost all momentum with that rain delay clearly. Cilic/Pella part two? 😂
Very depressing a how the nerves have got to Fritz!
But he is very young and is a future star!
Keys out!
7 of the top 10 female seeds are out!
Nothing like cilic/pella !!
He is just very young and inexperienced!
it was a darkness delay for Fritz, but yes
Zverev really needs to learn some humility! I much prefer lovely grounded Dom!
So rain delays/darkness helped players like Sasha and Pella. So not only Rafa benefitted from rain delays, others too.
Bernades will soon penalise Rafa for rain delays too 🙂
😂😂
😆
I expect rafa will ban bernardes from his matches again! Was a bit odd calling a time delay for receiving when play hadn’t even started!
Carlos called time but Rafa hadn’t finished his routine including lining up his water bottles etc. after changing his kit at the end of the first set. Strictly speaking, Carlos played it according to the rules but I think the powers that be should get a life. They will erase all individuality from the sport and they’ll all be clones of boring Federer.
They’ll soon make it against the rules to play lefthanded if you do other things with your right hand.
Bernardes will be banned for life