Wimbledon: 2-time defending champ
Carlos Alcaraz needs 5 sets to beat Fabio Fognini in the 1st round
[July 01, 2025]
By HOWARD FENDRICH
LONDON (AP) — Carlos Alcaraz, locked in a five-set struggle at
Centre Court, looked toward his coach Monday and shouted something
about how Fabio Fognini — 38 years old, retiring after this season,
winless in 2025 — looked as if he could keep playing until he’s 50.
“I don’t know why it’s his last Wimbledon,” Alcaraz said later,
“because the level he has shown, he can still play three or four
more years. Unbelievable.”
The two-time defending champion at the All England Club needed to go
through more than 4 1/2 hours of back-and-forth shifts against the
much-older and much-less-accomplished Fognini before emerging with a
7-5, 6-7 (5), 7-5, 2-6, 6-1 victory in the first round.
It wasn't supposed to be that tough.
“Didn't expect to play five sets against him,” Fognini said. “I had
my chance.”
Consider, to begin with, that the No. 2-seeded Alcaraz is 22,
already a five-time Grand Slam champion, including his latest at the
French Open three weeks ago, and is currently on a career-best
19-match winning streak.
Consider, too, that Fognini has never been past the third round at
the All England Club in 15 appearances and reached the quarterfinals
at any major tournament just once — way back at the 2011 French
Open. He entered Monday ranked 138th and 0-6 this year.
Oh, and then there’s this: Only twice has the reigning men’s
champion at Wimbledon been beaten in the first round the following
year, Lleyton Hewitt in 2003 and Manuel Santana in 1967.
There were times Monday when Alcaraz appeared to be something less
than his best, far from the form he displayed during his epic
five-set, 5 1/2-hour comeback victory over No. 1 Jannik Sinner for
the championship at Roland-Garros.
Alcaraz double-faulted nine times. He faced a hard-to-believe 21
break points. He made more unforced errors, 62, than winners, 52.
He chalked some of that up to jitters.
“It doesn’t matter the winning streak that I have right now, that
I’ve been playing great on grass, that I've been preparing really
well,” said Alcaraz, who beat Novak Djokovic in the 2023 and 2024
finals. “Wimbledon is different. I could feel today that I was
really nervous at the beginning.”
Next for Alcaraz will be a match Wednesday against Oliver Tarvet, a
21-year-old British qualifier who plays college tennis at the
University of San Diego and is ranked 733rd.
Still, Alcaraz said: “I have to improve in the next round.”
Fognini — whose wife, 2015 U.S. Open champion Flavia Pennetta, held
one of their children in the stands — is a self-described hothead
and is known for mid-match flareups, including at Wimbledon, where
he was fined $3,000 in 2019 for saying during a match that he wished
“a bomb would explode at the club” and a then-record $27,500 in 2014
for a series of outbursts. He was put on a two-year probation by the
Grand Slam Board in 2017 after insulting a female chair umpire at
the U.S. Open and getting kicked out of that tournament.
[to top of second column] |
Carlos Alcaraz of Spain celebrates after beating Fabio Fognini of
Italy during their first round men's singles match at the Wimbledon
Tennis Championships in London, Monday, June 30, 2025. (AP
Photo/Alastair Grant)
Such behavior wasn't displayed Monday. And when
Alcaraz pushed a forehand long to cede the fourth set, Fognini
nodded toward his guest box, where a member of his entourage stood
to snap a photo with a cellphone. Things were picture-perfect for
Fognini at that moment.
But at the outset of the fifth — the first time the previous year’s
male champ was pushed that far in the first round since Roger
Federer in 2010 — Alcaraz recalibrated.
When the Spaniard broke to lead 2-0 in that set with a backhand
volley winner, he pointed toward the stands, threw an uppercut and
screamed, “Vamos!” In the next game, he saved a pair of break
points, before the match was paused for more than 10 minutes because
a spectator felt ill amid record-breaking high temperatures for Day
1 of Wimbledon.
When they resumed, Alcaraz outplayed Fognini the rest of the way.
Fognini said he cried in the locker room afterward.
What else happened at Wimbledon on Monday?
While Alcaraz escaped, seven seeded men exited on Day 1, including
2021 runner-up Matteo Berrettini, No. 8 Holger Rune, No. 9 Daniil
Medvedev — who also lost in the first round at the French Open — No.
16 Francisco Cerundolo, No. 20 Alexei Popyrin, No. 24 Stefanos
Tsitsipas — who quit because of a persistent lower-back problem —
and No. 31 Tallon Griekspoor. No. 20 Jelena Ostapenko, the 2017
French Open champ, lost, while women’s winners included No. 1 Aryna
Sabalenka, No. 6 Madison Keys, 2023 Wimbledon winner Marketa
Vondrousova and 2021 U.S. Open champion Emma Raducanu.
Who plays at Wimbledon on Tuesday?
No. 2 Coco Gauff, coming off her second major title, plays in Day
2's last match at Centre Court against Dayana Yastremska. The other
matches in the main arena, starting at 1:30 p.m. local time (8:30
a.m. EDT), are defending champion Barbora Krejcikova against
Alexandra Eala, followed by 24-time Grand Slam champion Djokovic
against Alexandre Muller. No. 1 Sinner meets fellow Italian Luca
Nardi at No. 1 Court.
All contents © copyright 2025 Associated Press. All rights reserved
 |
