Wimbledon, Sonego beats Kudla in 5 sets and goes to the second round

After Jannik Sinner in the men’s draw and Elisabetta Cocciaretto in the women’s, the third blue to reach the second round of Wimbledon is the Piedmontese Lorenzo Sonego, who needed five sets to get to the head of the American Denis Kudla, overtaken by 6-7 6 -3 7-5 4-6 6-2 in 3 hours and 48 minutes. An interminable marathon, with continuous ups and downs, which rewarded the skilled blue, in the decisive moment (at 4-2, 0-40 of the fifth set), to cancel three balls of the counter break and to close.

Sonego played the first games very carefully and at 3-2 he snatched the serve from his rival with two winning straight. But he was unable to confirm the break he had gained by suddenly losing the measures of the field, especially with the forehand. At 4-5, on Kudla’s serve, the blue reached the set point that the American canceled. In the following game the Piedmontese suffered the break, but this time it was Kudla who did not confirm the advantage and allowed his rival to reach him at the tie break. Here Lorenzo, this time with the service available, had a second set point, but he fielded a very timid second ball that Kudla attacked with a winning forehand. Then the blue made a mistake with the backhand and at the first set point the American scored by attacking on Sonego’s backhand. In the second the blue played more loosely, immediately broke the opening break and never lost his serve until the beginning of the fourth set.

Severe distraction

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Ahead two sets to one (the break obtained to zero in the twelfth game of the third set was decisive), Sonego got distracted, got his breath back and Kudla got back in the wheel of his rival, accelerating from 3 even in the fourth set to the beginning of the fifth set . At this point Sonego was able to fly at 3-0, he defended himself with the service at 4-2, 0-40, canceling the first two break points with the serve and then the third with an exchange from the back, and then earn a precious match point with one of the many straight hooks. On the match point the blue responded well and Kudla missed the last straight of the match. In the second round Sonego is expected by the French Hugo Gaston who also needed five sets to tame Alexei Popyrin.

Musetti beaten

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Much faster Taylor Fritz, seeded number 11. The blue, beaten 6-4 6-4 6-3, was in the race until 4-2 of the first set, a 4-2 that seemed to have matured substantially thanks to the break scored in the third game. But that turned out to be the only pass for Fritz, who then in the rest of the match did not give much to serve, saving the three break points offered to his rival with great tranquility. Musetti, on the other hand, had a break in the tenth game of the first set, in the tenth game of the second set and in the decisive sixth game of the third set. Fritz closed in the second match point when Musetti put in an uncertain backhand volley with his nose over the net after just an hour and 44 minutes of play. Italy thus qualifies only two players in the second round (Sinner and Sonego). To find a worse Wimbledon you have to go back to 2013 when Seppi was the only player to get through the first round. Bolelli, Fognini and Lorenzi surrendered in the first round to Dimitrov, Melzer and De Schepper, while Seppi brilliantly reached the second round by yielding to Del Potro in three sets.

Flop spectators

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In the meantime, the spectators of the first day of the tournament that celebrates the 100th anniversary of the Center Court have been made official. Yesterday 36,603 spectators passed through Doherty Gate. It is the lowest number of spectators since 2007 (excluding last year when the spectators were limited) when it was 32,916. The record for the first day of the Championships is 43,275 in 2015. The last pre-covid edition, that of 2019, had 42,517 spectators.