Wimbledon Round 2 Recap: History Made, Čilić Shocks Draper & the Seeds Keep Falling
The second round of Wimbledon 2025 delivered on every front—from history-making wins to veteran dominance and another wave of fallen seeds.
In this episode of Ground Pass, Anastasia breaks down a wild Day 4 and what it means for the tournament moving forward. There’s only one top 5 seed left on the women’s side (!), new national milestones being set, and a draw that’s getting more unpredictable by the minute.
We get into:
🇹🇷 Zeynep Sönmez makes history as the first Turkish player to reach a Grand Slam third round
🇭🇷 Marin Čilić turns back the clock with a huge upset over Jack Draper
🌱 A look at all the seeds that didn’t survive Round 2—and why the women’s draw is wide open
🎾 Smart, attacking tennis from players outside the spotlight
🧢 A few more thoughts on fashion, because we’re still not over Day 1’s walk-on fits
📬 Plus: a voice note from Nick on the ground at Wimbledon
Whether you’re watching from Centre Court or catching up between matches, this is your Round 2 reset—and things are only getting more chaotic from here.
🎧 Listen now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or wherever you get your tennis fix.
TRANSCRIPT
Anastasia (00:00)
hi, welcome back ground passers. This is your round two, your round two recap of Wimbledon. What a tournament. It has been so much news and stuff going on, upsets. I think that is the theme. This is the upset Wimbledon. But welcome to your bonus episodes from Wimbledon. We will be coming to you at the end of every round.
We like to call this the TLDW, Too Long Didn't Watch. We watch it for you so you can just listen and we will give you the entire rundown. Nick, hello.
Nick (00:37)
Hello, I'm back.
Anastasia (00:39)
You are back. I'm a little not coherent right now because just before we jumped on to record, we were just talking about how exhausting sitting at home and covering tennis is, let alone, you know, can't even imagine what tennis players are feeling right now.
Nick (00:54)
yeah, I know, it's exhausting trying to jump between all the screens I've got.
Anastasia (00:57)
Exactly. How many, was it five screens you were watching you had?
Nick (01:02)
I can have up to five screens at the moment. I guess I could run another one on my phone if I really, really wanted to, but that is complicated. And are there really six matches I need to keep an eye on at the same time?
Anastasia (01:16)
the same time.
Yeah, if you guys don't know what we're talking about, you have to check out our social media, because I think I reposted somewhere your screen setup and.
Nick (01:25)
I
Anastasia (01:25)
okay. But yeah, our links are in the description of this pod so you can find, you can go find that photo because it definitely was an epic moment. ⁓
Nick (01:35)
I mean, I would
like to say, what is the difference between you watching four boxes on your screen on your fancy Apple TV?
Anastasia (01:41)
don't think there is a big, big difference. It's just like, because it's just, for me, it's just one screen divided into four boxes. So it seems maybe a little bit minimal. You had five individual different screens and I thought, wow, because it's a lot of sort of eye movement. You're going to that and you're going to that. But I guess you're not really watching all of them at the same time. Yeah.
Nick (01:56)
I mean.
No, no, it's difficult
to do that. Although I have figured out, like I have now changed the setup a little bit from when I posted the photo, I brought a chair in to put one of the laptops on.
Anastasia (02:12)
But hey, we have a lot to talk about, so we're going to jump right into it. We will be talking about on this episode, all the goings on from round two, how we feel about this sort of upset situation that's happening at Wimbledon. What were the matches and the moments from round two that we are excited for? And then obviously, we're going to look ahead to round three and talk about what matches we're looking.
forward to.
Nick (02:38)
Sounds good.
Anastasia (02:39)
Okay, so round two. Round two continued the theme of upsets at Wimbledon. It's just what it is right now. I literally posted a few hours ago a tennis lesson that you made about upsets because
we know the general idea of what an upset is, where someone who is lower ranked loses to someone who is higher ranked. That is the general idea of it.
But Nick, your video pointed out it's not just about rankings, right?
Nick (03:11)
No, it's about context. It's about who the player is that is the lower ranked. So I gave the example that Markata Vondrusova beating McCartney Kessler is not actually an upset because even though Kessler is seeded and Vondrusova isn't, Vondrusova is a former women's champion and Markata Vondrusova has never really been been a browse for the first couple of rounds of a Grand Slam. So like there are such things as genuine upsets, but sometimes you look at it and go, that's maybe not as
a real upset, just the players under ranked because they've dealing with injury or inconsistency or whatever, but we know what their top level is capable of. And we'll see a few examples when we go through the results today of these kinds of things. I do want to point out when we're talking about upsets as well, upsets are actually the norm at Grand Slams. Like we always have one or two.
Anastasia (03:52)
Yeah.
Nick (04:00)
like there's always at least one person who's like, like they're out. Do remember the Australian Open, the start of the year Anastasia we were getting very excited that Joao Fonseca took out Andrey Rublev and Learner Tien took out Daniil Medvedev and Alex Michelsen took out Stefanos Tsitsipas And those were all technically upsets. It's not a...
Anastasia (04:07)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, yeah. It's pretty much
been the theme this year. Because the beginning of the French Open, Roland Garros, was the exact same. I did a whole video at the beginning of Roland Garros called Upsets. And it just seems like it is the theme of 2025 tennis that at the Grand Slams we're getting these waves. Because you're right, every Grand Slam...
all throughout history has had upsets. It's something that happens. I just feel like for some reason this year maybe, I mean, definitely specifically Wimbledon just has so many happening at the same time. And I have a question because there is a high level of upsets at Wimbledon and I'm wondering,
does it have to do with the surface? Because the grass court season is the shortest surface season. It is five weeks long? Maybe six? I think it's, yeah, five. Yeah, so it's like five weeks.
Nick (05:15)
five, six if you count Newquen. No, you're right,
six if count Birmingham, but it's kind of overlapped with clay. So five core weeks and you've got kind of one either side of the challenges.
Anastasia (05:25)
Yeah, I think it's, yeah, so it's about five weeks. So coming off of very tough clay season, switching surfaces, and in three weeks you're in a grand slam, it seems like right now what's happening is the players just haven't had time to adjust, to become more proficient on the surface. And that's what's causing a lot of these upsets in some cases.
Nick (05:48)
think you've hit the nail on the head. I think it's because there's not a lot of time to adjust to the grass this year or any year. It's a very different surface. The ball bounces lower than any other surface, for example, and you move on it very differently as well as a player. I do think that that adjustment period that you would get with clay, where you get like a full like two to three months on clay almost, it
Anastasia (06:12)
Yeah.
Nick (06:12)
that
you've got that time to adjust and practice on it. Like grass is just like you're done after five weeks and you've got to hope you kind of, have to adjust on the fly and there's not, and being a grass court specialist means that, you know, that's not worth a huge amount of your ranking points. You're not necessarily going to get very far up if you are. So I think maybe there's those players who are better on grass than the rest of the year will be always seen under ranked, but it is the quality of upsets that's the,
Anastasia (06:29)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Nick (06:39)
surprise. So, Anastasia, I always want to say, do you... I've worked this out, so this is based on if Ben Shelton wins the match that he's played that's just got suspended. Do you know how many seeds are left?
Anastasia (06:55)
No, no, I gave up. I think I put out a video or maybe I just wrote it in a text or something, but I'm in the acceptance phase. I think the first two rounds, the first two days, sorry, I was literally like, no, how many are gone and what's happening? And now I'm just like, well, what's a seed?
Nick (07:14)
I know it,
so I worked it out. There are 15 women's seeds left and 13 men's. That's 28 out of 64. 44 % of the seeds at Wimbledon made it to round three, which is where you would expect them to make. And that is an unusually low conversion rate. I will say that. And that's what we're saying here is that upsets aren't the, you know, aren't
Anastasia (07:35)
Yeah.
Nick (07:41)
odd, it's the quantity that's the thing and I think you're absolutely right in the stars, yeah? That's gonna still be a thing every year at Wimbledon now because grass is such a unique surface.
Anastasia (07:52)
Yeah, yeah. you know, speaking of upsets not being new, it's just the quantity in this year's Wimbledon. I saw a comment online about how it's a bummer that we've lost all these seeds because casual fans are going to tune out.
They're not, they're done. They're not gonna watch the tournament anymore. And part of me understands where this was coming from, obviously, because if you're a casual fan, like let's just say, and I am pretty sure there are a huge amount of people who became tennis fans after Coco Gauff's run this year at the French Open. So imagine them thinking, okay, I'm all in. I love Coco Gauff huge fan.
What's next? Wimbledon, Wimbledon's next. Great, excellent. I'm gonna tune in and I'm gonna watch. And you watch her first match and she loses. And you know, so it's like, what do you do? Like, what do you do? So I definitely understood where that person was coming from. I think we exist as a podcast in general to help new fans navigate the tour and understand it a little bit more. And I kind of wanted to talk about this because I think
Yes, to an extent, there are a lot of big names that are out, people that you were hoping to follow through a tournament and hopefully win again. But I think unlike any other sport, tennis gives you a second chance. So if this was the NFL or basketball or something like that and your team lost, they didn't make it to the final rounds of the competition and they're not gonna make it to
you know, the Super Bowl or, you know, whatever it is, you have to wait a whole new season. You have to wait a whole year before they come around again and you have the choice to sort of like root for them again and do everything. And I'm like, with tennis, Coco Gauff is going to be playing another tournament in a few weeks. You know, the US Open is coming out. There are four of these, you know, technically where you're...
in football, in the NFL, or even in the World Cup. There's one World Cup a year, or there's one Super Bowl a year. We have four. So there are four opportunities. I think part of being a tennis fan is accepting the upsets. This stuff happens. We have a 10-month-long season that is pretty grinding and pretty tough. And yes, there were.
three players on the men's side and definitely Serena on the women's side who pretty much won almost every week. They would win back to back to back, but that's pretty tough to do.
Nick (10:21)
Yeah, it's pretty tough to do. Yeah, that was... And I think only the greatest, the great really kind of did that, to be honest, throughout history of the sport, like winning week in, week out. I think the difference with the situations is that, yes, you've got these kind of super balls where like that's where the biggest prizes are on offer, but those teams still play every week. Whereas in tennis, the players don't play every week.
feels like they do sometimes, but they do not. so, yeah, and you also have set teams that you kind of latch onto. So I do get where this comment is coming from, but this is where you kind of discover new players. is where you kind of, half the fun of tennis is rooting for the underdog. Like, unless I really, really like a top player, I'm not, going to be rooting for the underdog to win. I'm not interested in seeing the same people win all the time until the second week. And then I get excited when they start playing each other, but.
I'm interested in the stories and I think, you know, we're here to tell you all about the stories. And also if the same people won every week, then tennis would never change. Like Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal would never retire. They'd still go. So you also have to kind of deal with it for when tennis changes and transitions to new names coming on the scene. And again, very few other sports outside of like team sports.
Anastasia (11:25)
No, they would just keep winning all the time.
Nick (11:40)
like have this kind of constant rotation. So it's part of the territory, as you say, like names come and go and names have good weeks and bad weeks. And I would say, yes, there's been a lot of upsets, aside from Coco Gauff, like all the big, big names are still in the draw pretty much. So there's still plenty of people for you to follow.
Anastasia (11:58)
Mm-hmm.
Nick (12:02)
Unless you're a Brit, that didn't necessarily go so well after round two, after a great start during round one.
Anastasia (12:06)
Yeah.
Yeah, no, it did not. So let's get into the moments of round two that, you know, that we loved and exciting. You, you go first. Like what, what were a couple of moments for you in round two that you like.
Nick (12:21)
okay. So I'd say round two, for me, I'd say the main stories are if I watched Emma Raducanu play really, really well, like really well against Marketa Vondrousova, and Grand Slam champion, Grand Slam champion at Wimbledon. And, you know, marked that as a match to watch and Emma.
pulled off the win and she was a high-ranked player but she's not one Wimbledon, Marketa has. And what I liked about that match was Raducanu was just fired up, ready to go and what was impressed by was she played Marketa Vondrusova at her own game. if you're on the WTA Tour, frustrating thing about Marketa Vondrusova is she doesn't give you the same kind of ball twice. She doesn't play the same type of shot.
Anastasia (12:44)
Yeah.
Nick (13:04)
over and over and over again. It's not like, let's say, you play in Aryna Sabalenka you know that ball is coming at you hard, it's coming at you kind of at the same sort of pace, which is a lot. Whereas Marketa Vondrusova will probably throw a slice at you and then she'll hit a spinny forehand and then she'll then put in a different part of the court and you're running all over the place to try and catch up. And Emma did to Marketa.
what Marketta does to everybody else and beat her at her own game. amongst other things, but she got the crowd on her side. And I think there's a lot of people who are, who've been following Emma since she won that US Open, what's coming out for four years ago going, she's starting to look like she did when she won the US Open. Nobody's getting ahead of themselves because she's got Sabalanka next. But yeah, that for me stood out as a big moment that everyone got excited about.
Anastasia (13:32)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Nick (13:55)
when she won.
Anastasia (13:56)
Yeah, yeah. It's definitely, it's a very interesting one because
If you're in the tennis world, like if you follow tennis, that was an upset in the sense that everyone expected Marketa Vondrusova to win that. She's really proficient on grass. She just won a tournament coming into Wimbledon. She's been playing really well. She's won Wimbledon before in 2023. And then, but technically Emma is the higher ranked player. So it wasn't an upset. you know, I think that's kind of the subjectivity.
that we should allow ourselves when it comes to upsets and not an upset because it's all, think, context matters.
Nick (14:35)
don't think it could be because he didn't upset, because neither of were seeded and they're both Grand Slam champions. Everybody kind of went into that match thinking he was a 50-50.
Anastasia (14:41)
I
think it was considered an upset because everyone expected Marketa to win. I want to say 80 % to 90 % of people expected Marketa to win.
Nick (14:47)
Anyone who wasn't a Brit?
I think that depends if you're British or not.
because I think a lot of my British friends, yeah, the Brits, were definitely Brits out there that would consider it a much closer or even Emma being the favourite.
Anastasia (14:53)
Okay, the 10 % were the Brits.
Right, but again, I think everyone else definitely expected Marketa to win that. And I feel like that's why it wasn't upset and not, you know, as anyone who wasn't sort of an Emma fan expected Marketa Runge-Josra to win that match. In my, I think one of my moments of this was,
we got our Marcus Willis moment. And I've been posting about this and I realized I haven't really explained who Marcus Willis is or why the match between Carlos Alcaraz and Ollie Tarvit was the Marcus Willis moment between Roger Federer. So Marcus Willis is a British tennis player. he came up kind of around sort of like the mid, you know, like
2012, 2013, you know, era. And he was supposed to be a new young prospect on the scene, but he definitely was, I want to say he was a little bit of a bad boy of tennis a little bit. He was dropped by the LTA. Now the LTA is a lawn tennis association. It's kind of, it's the British tennis association called the Lawn Tennis Association. And they dropped him.
from his contract with them for lack of effort. Because he wasn't, think there was a story of him not showing up to a tournament with his rackets. And it was the moment where they said, okay, you're done. You're clearly not taking this professionally. So why are we putting money into you? Yes.
Nick (16:32)
Also,
there's some famous footage of him again around that period playing a challenger match and at the changeover, he's having a Snickers bar and a can of coke instead of your energy drinks and your banana and your enzyme gel, your special gels or whatever. Yeah, that was kind of the reputation that he had when he was attempting to make it go appropriate the first time around.
Anastasia (16:58)
Yes, definitely. he definitely wasn't someone that they were pinning their hopes on. wasn't the next, he wasn't like Jack Draper who they were like, that's the next Andy. So he kind of fell off. became a club coach, but then decided to give it another go. He was dating someone at the time and who by the way is now his wife and you know.
He decided, you know what, I should clean up. I should give it a go. And in 2016, he entered, we talked about this, there is a pre-qualifying tournament to get into qualifying. And he entered that. He got through, he got through qualifying, which is so funny because before we started recording, I went to go look at who he played in qualies that year in Wimbledon and he beat Andrey Rublev and Daniil Medvedev.
that year in qualifying to get into Wimbledon. So at this point, know, Andrey Rublev, Daniil Medvedev, they were super young at the time, but they were definitely prospects, you know? So I think Marcus Willis kind of captured the British imagination. I saw a lot of footage of him in the morning shows and like doing all the things. And he, I mean, he hadn't even yet at this point won a match at Wimbledon, but he had gotten through qualifying as a Brit.
And he goes, wins his first round match, which put him indirect, his next opponent was Roger Federer. And it was just like this sort of miracle run maybe is too much, because it's not like he made it to the quarterfinals. He lost to Roger Federer in the second round, but it was definitely a moment that year. And he kind of captured the British love and support and
He stuck with it for a while, but definitely has been in and out. Cut to, he's actually in the doubles draw at Wimbledon this year. He's playing with Billy Harris, Billy Harris of Billy Harris who has a van. We've talked about him a lot. He is playing in the doubles. They got a wild card to play doubles and they won their first round match.
So they're into the second round of the doubles competition. So I keep talking about Marcus Willis. Guess what? You can watch him. You can actually watch him at this Wimbledon. So that was definitely, I thought it was really funny that I've been like bringing him up over the last few episodes and he's actually in the tournament. So you can definitely catch him there. Yeah.
Nick (19:17)
Yeah.
By the way, Anastasia, before we move
on to the next thing, I just want to, to the next thing, I do want to say two things on this subject. First of all, yeah, we got it. Cause Ollie Tarvet plays his heart out against Carlos Alcaraz during the match in the same way as Marcus Willis plays his heart out against Roger Federer. But on Marcus Willis specifically, so he's playing, he and Billy Harris are playing their second round tomorrow. I think they're first on court 15, 16, something like that. Do you know who they're playing?
Anastasia (19:43)
mm-hmm.
no.
Nick (19:46)
and leave our own pattern.
Anastasia (19:47)
That's too good. I love this Wimbledon. That is too much. They're playing the defending doubles champions tomorrow. Guys, that's my match of the day. If you're listening back on this, you can check out our Instagram because every day we post sort of a match of the day.
For the next day and that's gonna be my match of the day. I had something else in mind, but I'm scratch that it's gonna be this Okay, let's start getting through these because again, we tend to Rumble and talk forever and we don't want to be here. But a few other moments from round two that super exciting These three names just watch out for them. I think in the draw Munar, Jarry, Bellucci
incredible. I think what happens in draws like this where we're like, oh my goodness, all the seeds are gone. What are we going to do? I think it can lead to awesome stories and people making really great runs and moving forward. And I think these are three names to definitely look out for. And I think definitely Munar and Jarry which the, um,
I think they're playing next? No, Jarry's playing Fonseca next. But in that section, there's gonna be someone in their draw, in their quarter of the draw that's gonna make it to the quarterfinals. And it's really exciting to have new names that you can follow. And a lot of these names are not old names. Mattia Bellucci is a player of the fortnight alum. We met him last year at the Citi open in DC. We have a Meet the Players.
episode about him, Nicholas Jarry of Nose Strip fame won the Rome Open last year, made a great run there. And Jaume Munar, we just talked about in Queens. So you will hear all these names and it's nice to see them make big runs at tournaments.
Nick (21:39)
Definitely, and by the way, Bellucci and Jarry could play each other in the fourth round if Jarry beats Fonseca and Belucci beats Norrie. So big opportunities there for someone to come through and make the quarterfinals at Wimbledon. I think I've got that right. I think there's big opportunities in that section anyway.
Anastasia (21:44)
Mmm.
Nick (21:56)
So, yeah, I think I've got some of the things on the women's side as well. Like it was hard to kind of identify, because there was just loads of upsets and similar kinds of stories. think the ones I'm most excited about, Dyana Yastremska is still going, but again, she's not a name you wouldn't have heard of before. She's been a topic of our tennis lessons before. She did well at Nottingham But I think other ones like Solana Sierra, the lucky loser who beat Katie Boulter is like...
Anastasia (22:16)
Yeah.
Nick (22:22)
this tournament's kind of Cinderella story of going pretty deep as a lucky loser in the tournament. She's certainly done better than Victoria Mboko. So she's like the luckiest of lucky losers to make round three. And I just want to say Kamilla Rakhimova who beat Jasmine Paolini. Like I loved watching that match they had. was four, six, six, four, six, four. It was so close. The rallies were super intense. Like this is Rakhimova's first top 10 win and
she pretty much beat a top 10 player at their game, pretty much. just went toe to toe and had a battle with a ball with Paolini. And I think that was the one where I felt like, you know, our top player gave it their all and lost against a really, really strong underdog. And so I was super impressed with Kamila Rakhmova. So I'm just to see how her and Sierra.
and a few others get through the women's drawer.
Anastasia (23:15)
Yeah. Taylor Fritz, he is, you know, having such a moment at this tournament and you'd be thinking, you're like, what do mean? It's Taylor Fritz and you know, he's the fourth seat. No, he's not the fourth. What is he, fifth? Yeah, he's the fifth seed. You know, of course he should be in the third round, but I think he had such tough opening rounds and he has shown such
Nick (23:28)
Fifth.
Anastasia (23:38)
grit and determination. What is really funny is that talking to people online about Taylor Fritz, I got so many replies to our posts, especially on threads actually, of people who were like, I'm all of a sudden a fan of Taylor Fritz. Like I wasn't before, now I am. And it's because, in the first round, he met Giovanni Mpetshi-Perricard, massive server, 6'8". In the second round, he meets
Gabriel Diallo, massive server, 6'8". Like he got all the big servers on grass. And if you know the sort of the, the, the properties of a grass court is that a big serve really is an advantage to have on the surface. And he just had the most sort of.
chaotic and also exciting five set matches. You know, his first one was suspended and that was the whole thing. He had to come the next day and play. And then his second one didn't get suspended, but was very close and they changed conditions halfway. So something to note, because people might not know this, but once the sun starts setting and it starts getting dark, the outside courts, they shut down.
matches get suspended and people have to go. And it's because of lighting. There's no sort of lighting for the outside courts. On the... Sorry? What's the second reason?
Nick (24:53)
Look, there's two reasons. There's a second reason as well.
The grass gets slippier. And we were seeing this during Shelton's match with Hijikata that's just got suspended today, like with one game left. like, essentially it was getting pretty clear that the players were struggling to keep their footing because, you know, grass gets wet when it gets dark. So...
Anastasia (24:59)
that's true too. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, the dew
Nick (25:17)
and you can't slide in it like it's on clay, you have no friction to stop you. there's a safety hazard as well as the fact that there are no floodlights on the outside courts.
Anastasia (25:25)
Yeah, but for the covered courts, they are lights and they have a roof. So they close the roof once it starts getting too dark. So Taylor Fritz starts the match with the roof open, everything's hunky dory, and then they close the roof halfway, which changes the conditions. If you have a big serve, it helps your serve once the roof is closed because it's kind of an indoor court now, basically.
So yeah, think Fritz, I see you have him here on your picks as well, but he definitely has had, or at least he's come out as one of the stars of this tournament so far, and we're not even in the third round yet.
Nick (26:03)
Everyone's talking about him because he's the one kind of entertaining everyone on the big courts right now because He's giving everyone five set matches in different ways He's also had a really tough draw because he's come across two players who are as you say very good on grass early on But he is Yeah, he's winning a lot of people over because he's showing a lot of grit a lot of fight
which is not something you associate with a big server. If you think in the years gone by and like this is probably for people a bit newer, we'll give you some context. Like American players in the past with big serves, like a John Isner or a Sam Querry or even an Australian like Nick Kyrios like they just do a big serve and then it looks like they struggled to do anything else. And so it's a bit language, not very exciting. They like, my serve came back. What do I do? Taylor Fritz has a bit more to that.
And so, and he has quite a strong, he does have quite a strong personality, especially when he's in the middle of a fight. And I think that is winning a lot of people over. But yeah, it's not just Fritz by the way, it's Arthur Rinderknech who also keeps getting into five set matches. The poor man's gonna have to play five consecutive days. I think he's playing singles and doubles tomorrow.
Anastasia (27:02)
Yeah.
ooh, that's tough. That's tough. I wonder if he will stay in the doubles. But yeah, these suspensions have definitely wrecked some havoc, I think, on the schedule. You can look back at our round one conversation that I had with Ian. We definitely get into the schedule and how we feel about it there. So look back at that episode for sure.
Some other stories that came out of this second round. I really love the story of Zeynep Sonmez She's the first Turkish player to make it, you know, through past the first round and now through the second round. So she's just, you know, making history every round basically. And for me, that's really what sport is about because she's from Turkey. No one is doing what, no one has done what she's doing. Who's from Turkey before. I think
know, people will probably see that from her country, pick up a racket or become interested in the sport of tennis, just kind of like we saw with Alex Eala in the Philippines, you know. So I always love stories like that in sports because it's great exposure for the sport and also gets new faces and cultures into the sport itself, either as fans or as players, which I love. Anything else that you want to.
I kind of want to talk a little bit about nerves because yesterday we lost Katie Boulter, today we lost Jack Draper, both British players. And it's funny, it's interesting because I think, especially with Grand Slams, think people automatically feel the home player has the advantage because they have the crowd and the support. And I almost feel like
in Boulter and Drapers, you know, kind of in their situation, it's the opposite. I haven't listened to any of their press, but it just seems like they can't make it through the second round of Wimbledon at their home tournament.
Nick (29:00)
Well, Katie Boulter's made the third round a couple of times before, but I do agree with you. She looked very nervous against Sierra and that's one of the big reasons why she lost. And it is simply a pattern with Katie Boulter that she played really well when she's the underdog, when she's the one causing the upset. She doesn't play very well when she's expected to win at Wimbledon or it's kind of a 50-50.
And that's a pattern that we have seen with her. And I do think that some players respond to playing in front of a home crowd well and some don't. Andy Murray always loved it. Andy Murray fed off it. That's one of the reasons why he's been called a champion. Sonay Kartal, who's in the third round, she's playing tomorrow. She loves it. Cameron Norrie loves it. I think it's a bit more mixed with Jack Draper, I will say, because you're right, last year he went out and it was super nevies.
Anastasia (29:33)
Mmm.
Nick (29:48)
I think this year, I don't think nerves played a big part. What did play a big part was Marin Cilic played like he was 10 years younger and he was in the Wimbledon final, which he was about in 2017. And I watched it, was like, did Marin Cilic just age backwards? Cause I like, where has he been? Like obviously I know where he's been. He's got injured. He's had a couple of surgeries, had to come his way up through challenges.
He won the Nottingham Challenger a couple of weeks ago and Draper did well to, I thought Draper did well to keep that match going. It was tough. I just thought Cilic played so, so well. And Cilic is one of those stories of the tournament. And again, it's one of those, is it really an upset kind of debates with him because he is trying to come back. He is a bit older now. He's in his late thirties. You don't expect him to pull off these kinds of results.
But then you look at how good he is on that and how good his results are as a US Open champion from 2014. You know, he crushed Roger Federer that tournament. That's the level we know that Marin Cilic can produce, has been capable of in the past. I think he's... Story of the tournament as sort of those resurgent players, not necessarily one who's making a breakthrough like all the others we've been talking about. So I'm excited to see what...
he's gonna do and how far he's gonna go now.
Anastasia (31:03)
Yeah, yeah, you know, I think so in his on court interview, which once he said that I was like, everyone watch out because he said, I've been, you know, in the UK for seven weeks playing challengers. And I was like, you've been in the UK for seven weeks on grass playing challengers. Of course you just beat Jack Draper. You know, and I think this is almost why we always say it's like, follow the smaller tournaments, watch smaller tournaments, see what's happening, because yes,
It doesn't always equate to doing well at a tournament. See Jessica Pegula Marketa Vondrousova all players who won the week before Wimbledon and now are out of the tournament. It doesn't always translate. But what it does show is that it's not like he's just been, he came from the injury bed and then now beat Jack Draper on center court, on court one actually that it was.
but he definitely has the pedigree, he's been working on it. And I think it kind of changes the equation for the rest of the players now, I think. I don't think, literally when the draw came out, everyone talked about how hard, everyone we did as well, talked about how difficult.
Draper's draw was, but all we were talking about was like, no, he's in Djokovic's half with Sinner and then also Bublik. No one was like, Marin Cilic. He was definitely mentioned. I know some people who did mention him, but nobody really thought that was the danger. The danger was Bublik, Sinner, Djokovic. And Marin Cilic struts on over and says,
I am a former Grand Slam champion. You will listen to me. But no, that was a really great performance. You will respect me. A couple of things, people who are quietly just making it through Osaka and Svitolina, it's kind of weird. have not, I think I saw like a couple of points from an Osaka match. I think it was the end of it.
Nick (32:41)
You will respect me.
Anastasia (32:58)
Sutilina on the first day, I saw like a couple of points from hers. So it's interesting that they're just quietly making their way. So we'll see how they get going. But anything else that you want to talk about in this section before we go into round three, what we're looking forward to?
Nick (33:14)
No, don't like not to add to it. I will just come back on your point. I think there's a couple of reasons why maybe we're not talking about Svitolina and Osaka's and that's pretty unfair. And one is Svitolina is in Sabalenka's and Keys' section. Like she has a tough draw to get through. And although I think she's a very good player and capable of pushing those players, not a lot of people back her to do it. think given what she did a couple of years ago at Wimbledon I don't think we should be surprised if she did.
That's probably why. Osaka think a lot of people have just been done with cautious optimism about her and just want to let her get on with it now. Like we're kind of done going, is this it? is this it? is she back now? And I think maybe we're just going to leave her alone and see if that's, if she does, if she does do something. The other one, actually there's one other name on the track there. Belinda Bencic is...
Anastasia (33:47)
Yeah.
Nick (34:04)
quietly making her way through as well and was injured up until recently and seems to fix that and is making her way through her draw quite well. So once we've watched this sort of the rest of the tournament as well, which leads us nicely into what is a fairly mouthwatering round three, Anastasia?
Anastasia (34:24)
I mean, I put on top of my list Sabalenka / Raducanu because that is going to be one of the matches that we watch at McCarran Parkhouse tomorrow. We are starting our screenings, watch list, watch parties, I mean, in person. you know, we did this during Roland Garros and it was really fun. It was really, really fun. So we're bringing it back for Wimbledon and we're gonna be at the McCarran.
Parkhouse tomorrow in Brooklyn starting at 8 a.m. and we're going to be watching all of the Center Court matches. I just put out the schedule on our social media on Instagram, so look at that and stop by if you're in the area, if you're in the neighborhood. But that's definitely one of the matches that, you know, for me stands out as one to watch because again, it's Sabalenka.
She's been doing so well, but how does Sabalenka respond to not being the favorite? Because the Brits are gonna come out hard for Raducanu. And it's almost going to be one of those things where you're sort of like, has Sabalenka learned from Roland Garros? Like, can she handle the pressure?
Nick (35:34)
Yeah, I think it's one of those matches where it's about the star power and that's where the hype is coming from. It's kind of the top brick versus the best in the world. And we've seen that happen a few times over the years at Wimbledon. Comes to mind immediately, there's a match that Serena Williams had 10 years ago and it gets Heather Watson where Heather nearly won. I don't even remember that one, Anastasia. ⁓ And there's a lot of people out there.
Anastasia (35:54)
Mm-hmm.
Nick (35:57)
that just assume that Sabalenka is just gonna walk all over Emma like she had done every other tournament. And I just think, I don't know, I think Wimbledon might make this a lot closer now and that Emma can do some things. So this match is probably the most hyped tomorrow that's happening in terms of round three. Although I don't know if it's the most hyped on our kind of list of.
matches because I've seen you've made a list of what you're excited about and I've made a list of what I'm excited about and there's two matches that made both our lists. One was this one and the other one was Jarry versus Fonseca.
Anastasia (36:25)
Mm-hmm.
that's gonna be, that's gonna be, you know what? I love atmosphere. I love atmosphere. I love it when a tennis match is not only exciting on the court, but is exciting in the audience. And Nicholas Jarry from Chile versus João Fonseca from Brazil, I would pay money to be on that court.
for sure. Like that is where you want to be.
Nick (36:55)
This is golden swing on grass.
This is the golden swing on grass.
Anastasia (36:58)
Yeah. Do we know what court that's gonna be on? Actually, wait, no. Is it court two? Okay, okay. So can ground passers go on court two? Okay.
Nick (37:01)
think it's court two. It's last match on court two, I think. So.
No, you have to get
a special court two court queue you have to queue, like there are up to 500 places for court two in the queue. Last I checked, the queue's already at 1500 for tomorrow. And I do wonder if a lot of that's South Americans. Either that or it's people camping out to go watch Emma against Aryna, which is on center.
Anastasia (37:18)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, yeah. It's so, you're right. It's so funny because before we did this, we were working on it, I think, at the same time, but I was just like typing, because then I had to go record something really quick. But Jarry Fronseca, that's must watch. I feel like that's what I'm going to have, know, depending on when...
center court is done or whatever. If I'm still at the watch party, I might be screening that on my iPad just so that I make sure I watch that match as well.
Nick (37:56)
there's a possibility
it's going to be on at the same time as Emma Aryna.
Anastasia (38:00)
We're gonna have to double screen. We're just gonna have to double screen. That's what's gonna happen. What else on this list? Of course we have Mattia Bellucci who really nice to see him do well here is going to be playing against Cameron Norrie. And then of course, Taylor Fritz against Alejandro Davidovic Fokina Come on. you know, it's funny because in the match between
Taylor Fritz and Gabriel Diallo, Fritz was just throwing himself on the court. Like he was throwing his body to get balls and all of that stuff. And if you know Alejandro Davidovic Fokina that's his thing. He's the one who throws himself and is always falling. So I really hope they just throw themselves over the court.
Nick (38:45)
Throw
themselves at each other, or does that sound too much like the movie Challenges?
Anastasia (38:49)
Let's make that happen. Taylor Fritz and Alejandro Davidovich Fokina figure it out. I want you to end the match with a massive big hug at the end for no reason. I still don't know why they did that at the end of that movie. But what other matches are you looking forward to?
Nick (39:06)
unsurprisingly it's mostly WTA matches. think the ATP match I'm most excited by is Jarry Fonseca. Also Fritz ADF to be fair, but that one I'm not sure about. I think that it'll be sort of very fun that one. But yeah, in terms of what I'm excited about, I'm excited by Pavlyuchenkova Osaka because that I think that's gonna be quite evenly matched. I'm excited about Clara Tauson and Elena Rybakina
because I think that's gonna be some big hitting. But I think there's two that are particularly catching my attention from the women's side, which are gonna be happening on Saturday. One is Barbora Krejcikova against Emma Navarro, who I think are like two of the outside contenders for the title, taking each other on in round three. And that one's really, hard to call.
Anastasia (39:49)
Why is that Nick?
Tell us why Emma Navarro might win Wimbledon.
Nick (39:55)
Emanuevaro did.
Anastasia (39:55)
I mean she did
lose to Veronika Kudermetova today. I mean she did win, sorry. She won.
Nick (39:58)
No she didn't. She did, yeah.
yes, so for those who don't know, Veronika Kudermetova lost the eventual Women's Singles Champion at Wimbledon the last two years, Barbora Krejcikova in round one and Marketa Vondrusova I think in round two the year before that. yeah, Veronika Kudermetova just chooses who the Wimbledon Champion is.
Anastasia (40:23)
just
give Emma Navarro the trophy. Just give her the plate already because she's winning. She's winning. Also, by the way, if anyone has not seen, I think I posted it on our social media, Emma Navarro did a spread for Tatler magazine, which is kind of like a lifestyle magazine, almost like a la vogue kind of thing. And my goodness, I had no idea.
Emma Navarro could clean up like that. those folks, I was shocked. They look, I was shocked. They look so good. And I'm gonna, you know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna make a link and I'm gonna put it in our show notes so that everyone can take a look at it because wow, Emma Navarro, you should have saved that for the trophy ceremony. You should have, you know, but she could do it again. She could do it again.
Nick (40:50)
I didn't recognize it.
She's got another look coming
for the trophy ceremony because she has been anointed by Veronika Kudamatova. We'll see what Barbora Kujikova has to say about that because she's actually on a bit of a winning streak at the moment. Albeit, she seems to be fighting her way through every single match right now. But yeah, that's why I'm going for that one. I think they're both doing quite well on grass at the moment as well. Navara's been to two grass court quarterfinals.
Anastasia (41:13)
to win.
Nick (41:32)
And then the other one, I am surprised you do not have on yours because I know you love your spicy matchups.
Anastasia (41:38)
Mm-hmm.
Nick (41:38)
Ika Sviontek and Danielle Collins is announced as the in round three.
Anastasia (41:42)
⁓
I mean, it's one of those things where I get it. I understand. It's sort of like, you know, what's going to happen this time? It's almost like the Ostapenko-Sviontech thing. It's like, what's going to happen this time? And I don't know. It definitely wasn't the first. I had actually forgotten that they were meeting, that there was a potential of them meeting during this tournament. So that should be fun. That'll be interesting.
Nick (42:05)
It's definitely going to be interesting. Obviously, Danielle Collins beat Iga last time they played on clay, which is where Iga usually dominates. They've had a few tasty matches over the years. Yeah, I think this is where you would kind of put seed in trouble situation for Iga Swiatek Danielle Collins, again, it wouldn't be a genuine upset because she made, I think she almost made top 10 last year or just a
briefly was top 10 and has been to a Grand Slam final and has history with Iga But I do think that there's a certain, there's gonna be a lot of drama in that match, I think. And that's why I'm circling it. Yeah, so that's my list. I'm looking at yours, I'm seeing, yeah, there's a few other interesting ones on your list. I meant to tell you, I saw Hailey Baptiste at Wimbledon when I went, I briefly looked over on her court.
Anastasia (42:41)
Yeah.
Yeah.
really? Isn't she awesome?
Nick (42:55)
going to watch Victoria Mboko play and I watched her win and I looked over and saw Hailey Baptiste in the middle of her fight with Sorana Cirstea and well, Baptiste beat Mboko yesterday and now she's playing, no, today, she's playing today. I'm my days mixed up. She's playing again on Saturday and I kind of understand why you're making a fuss about her now because up until this point, I've kind of gone, she's not really beaten any
Anastasia (43:07)
today.
Nick (43:20)
top players yet, like why are we hyping her? But she has quite a fun game style where you don't know what she's gonna play next.
Anastasia (43:24)
It's the game.
Mm-hmm. And it's just, you know, for me, it's never, yeah, I can actually say that with accuracy. It's actually never for me when it comes to what players that I like to follow or like to watch. It never has to do with sort of their record or have they beaten top players or anything. It always is everything about their game. And if I see potential or, you know, even like a player like Mattia Bellucci.
from his run last year, going from Atlanta to the Citi open, I just loved his game. I loved his tenacity and he was just such a dynamic player. Has he done much since? Not really until earlier this year in Rotterdam was where he made another big run. But I still love watching him and love watching his matches, because there's that potential. There's that potential to like,
be great and you wonder if they can meet it and if they can be good. And for me, that's Hailey Baptiste. Like the moment I saw her do her training drills in Charleston, I was like, that's it. Like she just seems so determined and so dogged with the way she was training and I enjoy watching her game. So she plays Mirra Andreeva in the next round and Mirra
doesn't have a good record really on grass. And I think there is opportunity there. There's opportunity for a good match between Mirra Andreeva and Hailey Baptiste. So it's one of my picks, for sure.
Nick (44:55)
I could see what you
mean by that. Yeah. I definitely think that that's going to be a fun match because there's going to be a lot of different shots on display. I think for me, I think people forget that Mirra Andreeva nearly beat Manchester City two years ago and made the quarters on debut as a 16 year old. I think her game does work on grass. It's just that since then, it's just not quite matched that. I think that, I think that people forget about that match.
But going back to what you were saying about sort of game styles, I agree with you. love, I'm similar. Like I spot a game I really, really like and I'm follow it. But I kind of go with, is this a game that's gonna create exciting matches? Or is this a game that I'm gonna enjoy sitting and watching? Like I love watching Diane Parry play and she's in the third round against Sonay Kartel The match I genuinely cannot call which way is gonna go.
Anastasia (45:40)
Ooh,
that is an interesting matchup.
Nick (45:43)
First on court one tomorrow. Genuinely don't know which way that one's going to go. Yeah, that's going to start about half an hour before center court does, think. But Kartal, I love the way Diane Parry plays. I don't think she's going to win anything, but I will root for that style of game succeeding. It's the same reason why I root for Karolina Muchova. I love watching her play. I think she's got a bit more chance of it.
Anastasia (45:45)
I'm watching that.
Yeah, I'm watching that.
Nick (46:09)
Yeah, when I think, or like, love watching Peyton Stearns because she always has amazing matches. She always makes it like, a circle of Peyton Stearns matches, she's gonna make it an epic if she possibly can. But I think in terms of who I think is gonna get good, I'm very much results-driven in that sense of like, but are they winning a lot of matches? And who are they beating?
Anastasia (46:21)
Yeah.
Yeah. One more match I wanted to call before we finish, Marin Cilic, because now I'm just watching every match he plays. But he just happens to be playing Jaume Munar, who, again, I said it after that Carlos Alcaraz match, this kid is good on grass.
Even though he lost that match, he showed that he could have won it and he has potential. He's had a great season and it's gonna be interesting to see him up against someone who can really play on grass and we know can and is he gonna be able to stand up to that pressure. So excited for that one.
we have been going for almost an hour, but we've kept it.
short, which is good. Thanks everyone for joining us. We will be back again at the end of round three to let you know how many seeds are left. That's pretty much gonna be the topic of that episode. I don't know Nick, if you're joining me, no, I think you're not. And I probably will be joined by Mitch Michaels, our buddy from Inside in Tennis. And yeah, we will see you then guys. Bye.
Nick (47:37)
Bye.
