We take a look at the selected round of 32 matches from the ATP Tour’s Wimbledon Tennis Championships taking place on Wednesday the 3rd of July 2019.
2019 ATP Tour | Wimbledon Tennis Championships
All-England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club, London, England
Selected Round of 32 Matches – 3 July 2019
Reily Opelka (32/10)
vs Stan Wawrinka (1/5)
With all the hullabaloo surrounding the likes of Federer and Nadal, it’s easy to forget that every single Wimbledon Championship presents Stan Wawrinka a chance of a career Grand Slam. The Swiss star has come a long way after a series of potentially career-threatening injuries over the past few years. His rehabilitation took some time, but that run to the Rotterdam Final really underlined his fundamental quality. But it was perhaps his dogged showing at Roland Garros that would have encouraged him most. He lost in a titanic four-set quarterfinal to compatriot Roger Federer. That match seemed to unlock the indefatigable competitor’s fighting spirit. But grass has never been the easiest surface for Wawrinka. The two-time Wimbledon quarter-finalist has never seemed one hundred percent comfortable during this point of the season.
In stark contrast to the fairy diminutive Wawrinka, American Reily Opelka is a veritable beast. He is officially the tallest man in ATP history, sharing the height of 6”11 with Ivo Karlovic. Traditionally speaking, tall players tend to perform well on grass. Goran Ivanisevic utilized every sinew of his frame during his Herculean run to the title. Just last year, Kevin Anderson showed the distinct advantage that verticality can have in propelling your service game. Opelka perhaps unsurprisingly had a deflating clay-court season. But the young American has already tasted success this season, claiming the New York Open title. Perhaps of more interest is his past at the All-England Club. He claimed the boy’s title here in 2015- the year in which he also finished runner-up in the double’s event. He enjoyed a breakthrough campaign last year, claiming three Challenger titles. This could present him with the perfect opportunity to take that next significant step in his career.
This will be the first time that Stan will face the WWE-style challenge that is Reilly Opelka. While the Swiss player seems to be resurgent of late, I just have a feeling that the idiosyncratic challenge that Opelka poses makes him worth a bet here. He has history here while Wawrinka has never managed to really find his feet on this surface.
Karen Khachanov (7/10)
vs Feliciano Lopez (11/10)
It’s been a whirlwind few weeks for the 37-year-old Spanish veteran Feliciano Lopez. First, he was accused by certain sectors of the Spanish media of match-fixing alongside former double’s partner Mark Lopez. He weathered those accusations masterfully during a memorable Queen’s adventure. He claimed the single’s title and doubled up alongside the ascendant Andy Murray to claim the double’s crown. Lopez had enjoyed a fairly humdrum season up until that point. However, Lopez has shown a particular affinity for grass-courts over the years. The three-time Wimbledon quarterfinalist is a previous winner of both Queens and Eastbourne. It’s perhaps his penchant for doubles that makes him such a crafty grass-court aficionado.
It’s been a fairly strange campaign for Russian Karen Khachanov. In November he became the lowest-ranked player since Ivan Ljubicic in 2010 to claim a Masters 1000 title, romping towards the Paris Masters crown. So 2019 was always going to be a high-pressure examination of his credentials. But things never started too smoothly for the arch baseliner. But as the season has progressed things have started to happen. He reached the quarterfinal stage of a stacked Indian Wells event. He then recorded his best Grand Slam performance to date, defying expectations on clay to reach the quarterfinal stage. The initial salvos of the grass-court season haven’t been too encouraging. Having said that, he has reached the semi-finals of the Halle Open in the past. But it will be interesting to see how the higher ranked Russian fares against the wily grass-courts skills of Lopez.
This will be the 3rd time that these two have met. The Russian leads the head-to-head 2-0, beating Lopez as recently as this year’s Indian Wells. However, that tight three-set loss actually reflected well on Lopez. Khachanov would have probably expected to win that match fairly easily. You can’t look at the recent events at Queens and doubt Lopez’s capacity for a shock here.
Written by Damien Kayat
