There are pros and cons to carnage. On the down side, every upset means a star player—i.e., someone with a fanbase—vanishes. On the upside, in place of those stars, you get stories. The prodigy on the rise, who we may be seeing for the first time. The veteran making a comeback after a career-derailing injury.
This year’s upset-heavy Wimbledon has been no different. Many of u might be missing Coco Gauff and Jack Draper at this stage, but we’ve had a chance to watch half a dozen players make career-best runs at Wimbledon they may never have expected themselves. Here’s a look at three players who kept those runs alive on Sunday.
You’re serving at 4-4, game point. Your opponent hits a ball that’s clearly long. No call comes from the electronic system. The point is stopped. The chair umpire (we’ll pretend you’re good enough to play with electronic line calling and a chair umpire) says it must be replayed. You go on to lose that point and the game to go down 4-5.
Oh, it’s also the round of 16 on Centre Court.
Would you have cried, or screamed for the supervisor, or sat on the court like Luke Wilson in The Royal Tenenbaums?
Pavlyuchenkova, who was the real-life victim of that mix of human and machine error, didn’t do any of those things. She complained, briefly; she stood in shock for a few seconds; she said the game was “stolen” from her; and she wondered if it happened because Kartal is “local.” Then she went back and started playing again, pretty much like nothing happened.