Guy McCrea’s Wimbledon Diary: Day 6

I didn’t see Yaroslava Shvedova’s ‘golden set’ live on No. 3 Court as I was commentating a match elsewhere and so watched it on tape. Very few people were immediately aware of what the Kazakh had done in winning 24 points out of a possible 24 to take the opening set to love against French Open finalist Sara Errani. Word quickly got around though! Incredibly, Shvedova told me later that she had no idea on-court of her achievement – the first perfect set ever achieved by a female player and only the second in the whole of the Open era: ‘I still can’t believe it. I thought it was a mistake. Then when I went to have some food before my mixed doubles, my manager confirmed it to me.’ Unbelievable focus – after all, if you hadn’t a lost a point in a whole set, surely it would only be human to realise it?

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The sands of time wait for no player however great their achievements and Serena Williams showed in her gruelling victory over Zheng Jie that she is no different. The Chinese player, a former Wimbledon semi-finalist – has often played Serena tough, but for me their match illustrated again how Serena can no longer just easily blitz opponents off the return even on grass. Serena served a personal-best 23 aces to edge Zheng – her serve, along with her fighting spirit, kept the four-time Wimbledon champion in the match at times as she struggled to dominate from the baseline like in the past.

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Great to see Zootennis’ Colette Lewis at Wimbledon. She is at the Championships for the first time in five years to cover the junior events which started on Saturday. I’ve known Colette for all that time and she really is the market-leader for junior and college tennis reportage. I’ll be devoting more time to the junior events including the girl’s draw next week and look forward to some good discussions with her about potential WTA stars and much else besides.

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Amazed that Ana Ivanovic wasn’t asked to do a main press conference after her third round win over Julia Goerges. I always presumed that it was mandatory that they took place, but apparently it is actually decided by the number of player requests made by journalists. Tough to believe that the former world number one and Grand Slam champion didn’t get enough interest – but it’s true. I do think the organisation of press conferences at the Grand Slams doesn’t help this situation. Too often journalists aren’t able to attend due to other commitments and deadlines. Surely there is another way.

Guy McCrea commentates on WTA tennis for television and radio. Follow Guy on twitter: @GuyMcCreaTennis

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