WIMBLEDON – Talent and consistency are two qualities that only a few tennis players have. Many talented players lack in consistency, while many consistent players don’t have enough talent. Fabio Fognini and Camila Giorgi certainly belong to the first category, with the difference that Fognini is now 31 years old and a family man, while Giorgi at 26 might have a few seasons ahead of her to fulfil her potential.
Fognini’s talent has always been undeniable, but his head has often prevented him from achieving important results. Yesterday Fognini failed to convert 13 out of 14 break-point opportunities against Jiri Vesely of the Czech Republic and ended up losing the match in four sets. Had Fabio won, he would have become the first Italian man to reach at least the round of 16 in all four majors.
Unlike her fellow countryman, Camila Giorgi has managed to capitalize on her opportunities in these Wimbledon championships so far. On Monday the Italian will face Ekaterina Makarova of Russia for a spot in the quarter-finals.
Nick Kyrgios represents another difficult case to analyze. When his game is on, he can hit anyone off the court, including the likes of Federer, Nadal and Djokovic. When the Australian has to deal with a bad day at the office instead, things can quickly run away from him. Yesterday Nick lost to Kei Nishikori 61 76 64, gifting the first set to his opponent in 16 minutes. Nobody knows what was going through his mind. He kept trying to loosen up his arm with very little success throughout the entire match. “I wanted to loosen up, Kei broke me in the first game and I started panicking. I was never able to step foot into the match. I couldn’t serve, my legs were heavy, and my footwork was terrible. Quite frankly I don’t know what happened to me. He was returning well; many players can’t return my serve as well as he does. I really wanted to do well here, it’s very disappointing,” the Australian said in his post-match press conference.
Nick was 19 years old when he upset Rafael Nadal at Wimbledon in 2014. Back then, many tennis fans around the world got very excited at the idea of a new extroverted character that could challenge Nadal at the top of the game.
In the following years, Kyrgios hasn’t certainly lived up to those expectations. In 2018, we are still talking about a player that is yet to maximize his enormous potential. Perhaps Nick would have preferred to play basketball, just like Fognini would have loved to become a soccer player. Camila Giorgi’s attitude towards tennis sometimes reminds me of what Andre Agassi wrote in his book “Open”. Agassi talked about how he was pushed to play the game of tennis by an obsessive father who wanted his son to become a champion at any cost. Camila is in a comparable situation with her dad and often talks about tennis as if it was an office job.
When Kyrgios first burst onto the tennis scene in 2014, John McEnroe predicted that the Australian would become the next big thing in tennis. “Kyrgios is the most talented player that I have seen in the past ten years,” McEnroe enthusiastically said.
During the Laver Cup three years later, Supermac seemed to have changed his opinion though: “He is a great guy, very extroverted and with the right team spirit. Perhaps it has been too hard for him to cope with the expectations of too many people, especially in Australia. It almost looks like that he is afraid of failing and letting people down.”
In the women’s tournament, the defeat of world No. 1 Simona Halep was the latest upset in a surprising first week that saw the incredible elimination of 9 of the first 10 seeds. No. 7-seeded Karolina Pliskova and No. 11-seeded Angelique Kerber are the two highest seeds left in the draw. In my opinion, Kerber-Williams is the most probable women’s final, but not as probable as Federer-Nadal in the men’s tournament.
(Article translation provided by T&L Global – Translation & Language Solutions – www.t-lglobal.com )
