Rafael Nadal is safely through to the Wimbledon third round, but he will be eager to raise his level when he takes the court against Lorenzo Sonego on Saturday. Botic van de Zandschulp and Richard Gasquet are also aiming for a place in the second week.
(27) Lorenzo Sonego vs. (2) Rafael Nadal
Nadal did enough to reach the third round at Wimbledon, but he will have to raise his level substantially if he wants to win a third straight Grand Slam title. In fact, he may require dramatic improvement if he simply wants to get past Sonego on Saturday. From the standpoint of offensive firepower and general grass-court prowess, Sonego is a much more dangerous opponent than Nadal’s first two foes in Francisco Cerundolo and Ricardas Berankis—both of whom took a set off the Spaniard. Two of the 54th-ranked Italian’s ATP final appearances have come on the green stuff, including the 2019 Antalya title. He reached the fourth round at the All-England Club last summer and so far this fortnight he has taken out grass-court specialist Denis Kudla in five sets and Hugo Gaston in straights.
Surprisingly, Nadal dropped the third set against both Cerundolo and Berankis and even trailed the fourth set of his opening match by a break. It has hardly been impressive by the 22-time major champion, but those were his first two grass-court matches since 2019. You have to think improvement is coming sooner rather than later, plus it’s never easy facing Nadal for the first time—which is the case for Sonego in this contest.
Pick: Nadal in 4
Richard Gasquet vs. (21) Botic van de Zandschulp
Van de Zandschulp and Gasquet will be going head-to-head for the second time in their careers and for the second time at a major this season. They previously faced each at the Australian Open, where it was one set all before Gasquet retired. The Frenchman had lost 10 games in a row at the time. Gasquet has been plagued by injuries throughout his career and at 36 years old things are not getting any easier. The world No. 69 was forced to play nine sets in his first two rounds, too, so he is definitely a question mark heading into the last 32.
Whereas Gasquet had to work hard against both Joao Sousa and Mackenzie McDonald, Van de Zandschulp mostly cruised past Feliciano Lopez and Emil Ruusuvuori—dropping just one set to the Finn. The 25th-ranked Dutchman has been in great form dating back to the summer of 2021 and this is his fourth consecutive appearance in at least the third round of a Grand Slam. Now he has a golden opportunity to reach the Wimbledon second week for the first time.
Pick: Van de Zandschulp in 4
Exactly!!! This is CLEAR gamesmanship!!!! While Nick and Steph r playing the skins off!! Sigh!!
It’s very irritating. He is only saying this because he’s losing. After he first complained Rafa seemed quite bothered and not playing with same aggression..
Whoever designed this so you only have lights when you close the roof needs shooting…
It’s pretty clear Tsitsi should have been defaulted.
I hope he loses.
NK is a brat but so is he.
Sonego is a cheat!
If they hadn’t had the delay Rafa wouldn’t have lost his serve!
This is very irritating.
Well done Rafa!
Amazing the improvement today since the first 2 rounds.😀
He was fantastic today..
Finally Rafa has gotten it together! A great effort today! Happy to see him get his grass game going!
Three sets for Rafa! No fourth set!
Way to go Rafa!
Yes but not sure what happened there with him and Sonego!
I like the way Rafa addressed it in the interview!! Bravo, Rafa!! 😃
Onward and upwards, Vamos!!!
Can Tsitsi be retrospectively defaulted?
He should be…
Now, now that Rafa has won, where r all the nay sayers that said what they said about Sonego giving Rafa a hard time?!! Honestly………..disappointed in u all!!
We didn’t say that Mona! We said Rafa had to lift his level!
The match was always entirely on Rafa’s racquet..
Come on! Rafa won and played his best yet! We should just celebrate!
Rafa moving on to the fourth round!
😍
Yesss!! Very happy today!
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 acknowledged!
Anyway who is Rafa playing next? Nick!!
Monalisa, we were right not to worry about Sonego 😉 !!!
NK may have the honour to play against Rafa in the semis – if both of them manage to win their next two matches. But it seems to get more likely…
NK wins!
He may well go through to the semis..
The commentators are saying he was behaving in an intimidating way..
I only saw the end..
So happy to see that Rafa’s playing so much better and had an “easy” win today! I didn’t watch since ABC is carrying the coverage this afternoon and I figured I’d be stuck watching a lot of NK and Tsitsi and I have zippo interest in either of them except I’d love it to go 5 so that they wear each other down!
You were smart not to watch. They did stick with the train wreck that is Krygios. Tsitsipas tried to take it to five but came up short.
The match between Kyrios and Tsitsipas was close, but Tsitsipas as usual had to make mistakes and lost serve once in set two and three, when he also had BPs or SPs against Kyrios but Kyrios saved all of them with good serve and good play.
The fourth set TB was close and Tsitsipas lost it again, at 8-6 or 9-7. Tsitsipas was simply not clutch at crucial moments, whilst Kyrios OTOH could just rely on his great serving to get out of troubles.
It’s another disappointing loss for Tsitsipas where it matters, to me Kyrios wasn’t playing exceptionally well, just well enough to win a closely fought match.
Kyrgios was losing and then he started wuth the bullying and verbal abuse. At everyone. The chair umpire, the crowd. He made a mockery out of it. But what it did do was throw off Tsitsipas. He got rattled. I know what some may say. That he should not let these antics get in his way. But that is easier said than done.
He called the chair umpire every name in the book. But it worked. The ESPN commies were all saying it’s terrible and blah,blah,blah. But they stuck with that match and pretty much ignored Rafa’s match.
That’s pretty awful!
I only saw the very end of the match.
I hope he loses to Nakashima. It’s entirely possible as he generally plays a lot better against the top players and loses concentration against those he is supposed to beat..
Go Nakashima!
I will be cheering for Nakashima!
Welp that was hilariously fun imo. Nick got into Tsitsipas’ head. He’s gonna be hard to stop if he keeps this level up. And the rule needs to change imo. You shouldn’t need to injure someone when you hit a ball recklessly in their direction out of uncontrolled anger.
The unfortunate part is that they stuck with that match and I saw very little of rafas win.
Vamos Rafa!!!
I didn’t find it remotely fun. Tsitsipas got frustrated with the antics that were done to deliberately throw him off. Kyrgios lost the first set. So I’m the second set he started arguing about nothing and going after the spectators and the chair umpire. Anything to disrupt the flow of play.
Oh and about trying to hit someone. Kyrgios did exactly that a few years back at Wimbledon. He went straight for Rafa. Rafa stared him down and then just played some great shots.
So are you saying that it’s not okay for Tsitsipas but it is okay for Kyrgios? Because nothing happened to him when he did it.
They have not done anything that would be harsh enough or damaging enough to Kyrgios. So he gets away with it. It is bad for the game. He is toxic. But there is nothing at all funny or hilarious about his behavior.
Nick is a narcissistic individual. Watch both of their post pressers. Nick was totally shocked that Tsitsipas said he was a bully! He said he did nothing wrong today. It was Tsitsipas hitting balls into the crowd and at him. He just has no idea why?? He muttered constantly when Tsitsipas was serving. But Nick accomplished what he set out to do… especially after he lost the first set. He was trying to get under Tsitsipas skin… and he did. Steph lost focus. Players don’t need to involve themselves in Nick’s craziness on court. He does this for a purpose…. to needle his opponent. But I’m like Tsitsipas, I think all of that on court chatter he does, needs to have a rule put in place to warrant a warning. It’s just beyond ridiculous! My two cents!
I agree about Kyrgios doing this deliberately. He lost the first set and was not happy about it. That’s when the verbal abuse started. He talked whenever Tsitsipas was serving. That will break a player’s concentration.
In his presser Tsitsipas said he took responsibility for hurting the ball into the stands. He has never done it before and he says he wouldnever do it again. Typical of Kyrgios to inky see his opponent’s bad behavior and not admit honestly that it was because he was trying to rattle him and get under his skin.,
I do think they need a rule in place just like with other code violations. Kyrgios will do it as long as he gets away with it. The ATP should stop looking the other way.
I blame the ATP for all of Nick’s behavior becoz they refuse to address it appropriately. I feel he clearly has some mental issues, and what’s worse the crowd loves it hence the reason they rather show HIS match rather than Rafa”s! Maybe if it was Roger playing they wouldn’t show Nicks match that much.
Nick behaves this way a lot when he plays high ranked players bcoz he believes he’s better than they r. He has an ego trip and he is envious of the attention they get and bcoz he knows he may never realize their achievements he acts up so he can get at least some notoriety. I agree with the person who said he might just lose the next match.