The early days of the grass-court season, when the lawns are slick and the players still coming to terms with the abrupt transition from clay to turf, offer few guarantees. Nothing makes a mockery of reputations quicker than a surface that demands instant adjustments to technique, movement and mentality, as the staple components of clay-court combat – heavy topspin, sliding defensive play, patient point construction – give way to ankle-high bounces and short, sharp rallies.
Eleven days after the final ball was struck at Roland Garros, the casualties are coming thick and fast.
Elena Rybakina, the Wimbledon champion and world No 3, lost in three tight sets to Croatia’s Donna Vekic in Berlin on Wednesday. A day earlier, Ons Jabeur, the defending champion and runner-up at the All England Club last summer, was vanquished by Jule Niemeier, a 23-year-old German ranked 120.
The pair were followed out of the tournament on Thursday by Aryna Sabalenka, the Australian Open champion and world No 2, who was beaten 6-2, 7-6 (7-2) by Veronika Kudermetova, and Coco Gauff, the American fifth seed, who lost 6-4, 6-0 to Ekaterina Alexandrova.
While each of those results will go down as an upset, none came entirely out of the blue.
Vekic, a former Nottingham Open champion, has a natural affinity for grass and produced a performance of outstanding quality, serving brilliantly and troubling Rybakina throughout with the depth and pace of her ball-striking.
Niemeier, a quarter-finalist at Wimbledon last year, is similarly proficient on grass, and had the advantage of two tough qualifying matches under her belt. Like Kudermetova and Alexandrova, who contested last Sunday’s final in ‘s-Hertogenbosch, Niemeier was able to make that extra mileage count, catching Jabeur cold in her first grass-court outing of the season.
Yet neither form nor experience can truly insulate against the vagaries of the surface, a fact of which we were reminded when Niemeier slipped against Marketa Vondrousova in the next round and was forced to retire with a wrist injury.
Take Andy Murray, a two-time Wimbledon champion who arrived at Queen’s Club on a run of 10 straight victories after claiming back-to-back Challenger titles in Surbiton and Nottingham. Up to 38th in the rankings following those successes, his highest position since he had a metal hip installed four years ago, Murray needed a quarter-final run to earn a place among the 32 seeds at Wimbledon.
Instead, the 36-year-old came away with a chastening 6-3, 6-1 defeat to Alex de Minaur, the Australian seventh seed. Various elements played into that outcome – a quick turnaround after Sunday’s win in Nottingham, the physical demands of a third tournament in three weeks, a head-to-head record that now stands at 4-0 in De Minaur’s favour – but, as Murray acknowledged, the courts also played a part.
“They’re pretty quick,” said Murray. “A little bit faster than the ones last week. [I] maybe struggled slightly with that, but I did pretty much everything that I could to give myself the best chance of playing well.
“I probably would have liked to have practiced for a bit longer, but then you’re like, well, if you do that, then you maybe are taking a bit of energy away for the following day.”
That even Murray can be affected by such considerations speaks volumes about the exacting nature of the surface. If a man who made the quarter-finals or better at Wimbledon for 10 straight years finds aspects of the transition to grass challenging, what hope for those at the opposite end of the experience spectrum?
“The most difficult part is to move well on it, you have to be careful,” said Carlos Alcaraz ahead of his debut appearance at Queen’s, where he is the top seed in only the third grass-court event of his career.
“There are a lot of players who slide on grass. I’m not one of them. I have to be really focused on every move and every shot. It’s more tiring when you’re moving on grass. So it’s totally different. I have to do specific work.”
Alcaraz had ample opportunity to undertake some of that work over the two and a half hours it took to subdue lucky loser Arthur Rinderknech in his opener on Tuesday, and the fruits of his labours were clear when he subsequently saw off Jiri Lehecka 6-2, 6-3 in a relatively brisk 85 minutes to reach his first grass-court quarter-final. Clearly the 20-year-old US Open champion is a quick study, yet he also has the savvy and humility to learn from past masters like Murray and the retired eight-time Wimbledon champion Roger Federer.
“I have a lot of time to watch videos, to learn from the best players in the world, Andy, Roger, [Novak] Djokovic,” said Alcaraz. “Right now we are on grass and I want to look up to the best players on grass and [the best] movers.
“Roger and Andy for me are the best players that are moving great on grass. So I want to be the same, like them. I’m not talking about Djokovic, because Djokovic slides like [it’s a] clay court, and [that’s] not my case. But I try to put similar stuff in my game that Roger and Andy does in grass.”
Alcaraz is not alone. Daniil Medvedev, the top seed in Halle, likewise admitted to drawing inspiration from serial grass-court winners like Federer and Djokovic after defeating Serbia’s Laslo Djere 6-3, 6-7 (5-7), 6-3 to reach the quarter-finals.
“It’s a little bit strange for me, because when I see top players like Roger and Novak, from one side they can seem like aliens [on grass],” said Medvedev.
“But you try to see the best in them and how they are able, on this surface – where it’s sometimes tricky to beat anyone – to have so many titles, Wimbledon, Halle, whatever. It’s just amazing, and that’s what I try to watch.”
The need to adapt, to learn, to apply the lessons of the past to the challenges of the present, does not end when the players finally converge on SW19. A living, breathing surface that changes from day to day, grass demands constant, ongoing adjustment, as the infamous slips suffered by Serena Williams and Adrian Mannarino on Centre Court two years ago demonstrated.
“It’s super key to get through those first two rounds, because the grass is more slippery,” said Federer, Mannarino’s opponent that day. “It’s more soft. As the tournament progresses, usually it gets harder and easier to move on.”
That will be music to the ears of Alcaraz, who returned to the practice court following his victory over Lehecka to hone his game further.
“Moving on grass, as I said a few times, for me is the key of everything,” said Alcaraz, who will face Bulgaria’s Grigor Dimitrov for a place in the last four at Queen’s. “It’s the key [to] if you are playing good or not.
“You have to be more focused on the footwork here. Talking from me, I can’t slide as I do on clay or on hard court. So you have to know that and adapt.”