The outer courts at Wimbledon–or at any of the four majors, for that matter–always deliver drama during the first few days of the event.
Monday was certainly no exception.
A throng of five-setters–including a whopping four comebacks from two sets down–graced the grounds of the All-England Club. While Centre Court and Court 1 mostly produced the kinds of straight-set beatdowns to which they are accustomed in the early rounds of the tournament, the outer courts were where it was at.
There were eight five-setters, which were played on Court 15, Court 10, Court 16, Court 9, Court 15, Court 17, Court 7, and Court 5. If you had a grounds pass on Monday, you were living right. And even if you had a ticket for Centre, 1, 2, or, 3, hopefully you eschewed those matches (although Carlos Alcaraz’s opener against Mark Lajal was quite entertaining and somewhat competitive) and instead took your talents to the more exciting annals of the AELTC.
Court 9 was where you could find an especially epic showdown between Lloyd Harris and Alex Michelsen. Harris won 3-6, 4-6, 7-6(5), 6-2, 7-6(11-9) in three hours and 29 minutes, the end of which won’t soon be forgotten. Harris should have closed it out prior to fifth-set tiebreaker, but he was broken from 30-0 up at 6-5. A ‘breaker ensued and soon it was Michelsen who was on the brink of victory at 8-5. Harris ended up saving one match point (on his own serve) at 8-9 before bringing up a MP of his own at 10-9.
That’s when incredible theatrics were produced. An unreal match point featured both players running every which way on the court–up, back, side to side…. It was complete with Harris hitting a diving forehand that left him sprawled on the ground, a backhand overhead (after he had gotten up from the previous forehand), and finally a lunging forehand volley winner that again reduced him to a crumpled heap on the Wimbledon grass–this time in triumph.
If you were lucky enough to be in London for Day 1 of the Championships, hopefully you–like me–were there.
If not, there are still plenty more days of first-week Grand Slam madness on the outer courts to whet the appetite of the true diehard tennis fans.
Ricky contributes to 10sballs.com and also maintains his own tennis website, The Grandstand. You can follow him on Twitter at @Dimonator.