The men's semi-finals day at Wimbledon opened with a meeting between Novak Djokovic and Roberto Bautista-Aguta. For the first racket of the world, aimed at protecting the title, Spaniard, modest by tennis standards, could be a big hindrance. This year they have already met twice, and both times the Serbian tennis player suffered defeats.
However, all the defeats of Djokovic from Bautista-Aguta took place on the courts with a hard surface, while the opponents did not meet on the grass even once. It was quite difficult to assess who the fastest courts at Wimbledon were more suitable - both scored five wins, losing just one set. Djokovic thus adhered to the best graphics for himself, according to which he went to two victories in the Australian Open. His rival didn’t linger for so long at the Grand Slam tournaments - only now for the first time in his career he reached the semi-finals.
Djokovic started the semi-final with a 3-0 spurt. The Serb didn’t limit himself to just one break, and he managed to win the first set in 37 minutes. However, in the second game, Bautista-Agut did not allow so freely to dispose of his serve. Almost every point on the first serve got him, but with such confidence he was able to make a break and a story early. At this point, the game was stopped for a few minutes because of the audience, which felt bad.
Djokovic managed to take a breath and save another hopeless game in his serve, but his rival was not going to give up. Bautista-Agut began to play aggressively at the net, and it came as a surprise to the first racket of the world. Djokovic was unable to recoup and lost the second set. It was appropriate to recall that in the two previous victories of this season, the Spaniard won back after 0: 1 in sets.
First Squad for the Grand Slam for the @BautistaAgut, the Spaniard takes the second 6-4 against Novak Djokovic
It's evenly poised ... # Wimbledonpic.twitter.com / HhgMmqpvMp
But in the third game the current champion was again the best. He led 4-2 and escaped from two break points. The second draw, which allowed to avoid losing the game, went down in history. Tennis players threw balls 45 times over the net, and this was a Wimbledon record - at least since 2006, when such statistics were taken into account. Dmitry Tursunov and Yarkko Nieminen staged the previous longest single point draw in 2006. They hit the ball 42 times.
Back in front ...
Defending champion 6th # 3 # # Wimbledonpic.twitter.com/hSfwMuWTW0
The fourth set began with the fact that Bautista-Agut deprived Djokovic of four break-points. But in the third game the Serb achieved the necessary advantage and did not miss it. The Spaniard has a little more tormented the opponent, having played four match points, but then admitted defeat. Djokovic reached the sixth Wimbledon final and will now compete for the fifth title in this tournament.
Bautista-Agut will not be upset for long because of defeat. He himself did not plan on playing for the tournament for so long and planned to be in Ibiza these days and celebrate a bachelor party with friends. But because of the sporting success, the party had to be moved to London, where all the people with whom the Spaniard was going to spend the weekend came.
Federer's revenge
Djokovic’s victory meant that for the 11th consecutive time since the 2017 Australian Open, the Grand Slam will win the Big Three tennis players. After all, the second ticket to the finals was played by Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. With Wimbledon 2003, these tennis players lost only on 11 majors, and the current tournament is not one of them.
Match Federer and Nadal in the first place was presented as a repetition of the legendary finals of Wimbledon 2008 - one of the best matches in the history of tennis. Then the Spaniard in the five-set match took revenge for the two previous final defeats. Over the next 11 years, the level of their rivalry remained as high, only now Nadal led with a score of 24:15, and it was time for Federer to call his opponent to account.
It was important for the Swiss to seize the initiative early. If in the previous matches with Nadal he lost the first set, he scored only two wins out of 20. This time the starting warm-up was calm. Tennis players each won their pitch up to the tiebreaker. Federer had a chance to break such an order, but he never realized his break-points. In the shortened game, the Swiss initially lost 2: 3, but then won five points out of six. For 52 minutes, he still recorded the first batch of himself, incidentally breaking the record for the number of aces at Wimbledon - the last achievement was 1397 innings through and belonged to Goran Ivanishevich.
Fixated.
Advantage @rogerfederer as the wins the first set tie-break 7-3 # Wimbledonpic.twitter.com / b9KYikDrgZ
In the second set, Nadal had an even more impressive series - at one point he managed to win ten consecutive draws, and this allowed him to level the game. The Spaniard led 5-1 and then calmly filed for a set. Of the 45 draws, two thirds were left behind.
Federer quickly recovered after such a defeat, which he could not tolerate since the US Open - 2017. In the fourth game of the third set, he took the filing of Nadal, after which he escaped with three break points. The Spaniard began to delay the game with long sweepstakes, but Federer endured this difficult test for him, a 37-year-old tennis player. The third set, he won with a score of 6: 3.
One step closer to a 31st Grand Slam final ... @ RogerFederer takes 3-3 # Wimbledonpic.twitter.com / GPRlmcx1sM
- Wimbledon (@Wimbledon) July 12, 2019Nadal did not know how to answer him now, because he himself was already losing strength. He again lost his serve early and could not win. With the score 5-3, Federer first earned a match, but the opponent played this and the next attempt to reach the final. In the next game on his serve, the Swiss approached again as close as possible to the victory and from the third time achieved it. Federer for the 12th time will fight for the title at Wimbledon, which he won in eight cases already.