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Center Court got a taste of the future Tuesday when Angelique Kerber beat Daria Kasatkina 6-3, 7-5. There was a lot more than online shows. Kasatkina, 21, is incredibly talented, wildly erratic, and plays the kind of tennis that makes people gasp, scream and sigh. She did a lot of shooting, nobody could do it, and she misses a few.
In the end, Kerber, 30, and the best-ranked head of the draw, needed seven match points to beat her at the end of a 10-minute match that included an amazing rally 25 shots. She will now play another young star, Jelena Ostapenko, in the semifinal on Thursday.
The championships could therefore have a sequel to the 2016 final, which Kerber lost against Serena Williams in two sets. Kerber was playing the best tennis of his life at the time. She won the Australian Open and the US Open, and finished runner-up here and at the Rio Olympics. All this success has thrown it away. In 2017, she did not go past the fourth round of any of the Grand Slam tournaments, and eventually fell into the top 20. She has repaired her game in recent months, working on the lessons that she has learned. She has learned in times of lean cows. She says that she took a lot of Wimbledon last year in particular, when she was eliminated in the fourth round.
"Especially on the mental plane," said Kerber. She refuses to pay attention to what is happening elsewhere, and firmly refuses to be drawn to what it feels like to be the first seed. "There are no more favorites, I do not look to the left or to the right, I do not look at others, I really care about my game, my games, the way I play on the field. "
Kerber says that she also changed her game and started playing more aggressively. "I know I can really do well on the defensive, but to improve my game, I know I have to go to win too."
Between Kerber's aggressive stance and Kasatkina's breathtaking skill, the match was a treat. The two know each other thoroughly, because it was their seventh competition in the last two years and their third in the last four months. Kerber now leads the tete-a-tete by four to three. If she had an advantage here, it's that Kasatkina is still making her way into the big slam tournament – it was only her second major quarterfinal after losing in two straight sets at Sloane Stephens at Roland Garros last month. voltage.
Kasatkina said that her nerves were not so tense here, but she struggled at first. She missed a forehand on breaking point in Kerber's very first service match, and then lost her own serve thanks to a couple of double-sloppy fouls, one on the verge of breaking. When Kerber won the third game to love, she was 3-0 in just under 10 minutes. So Kasatkina really started playing.
Kasatkina has the game to win a Grand Slam title. She beat the four defending champions – Garbine Muguruza, Sloane Stephens, Caroline Wozniacki and Simona Halep – in the past 12 months. She is a marvel, every galloping setbacks, skillful kicks and tricky slices, she even refined her shot between the legs. She says that she used to spend two hours a day practicing when she was little. She broke Kerber for 4-3, but was then broken in the next match, after another pair of double faults.
If it was dramatic, there was nothing on the second set, which was an epic – one of the best played here again this year. It took a little less than an hour, and included seven service breaks. Kasatkina was snuck away from a breakdown, then dropped out at the next match, broke Kerber a second time, and was broken back. At that moment, Kasatkina screamed curses in Russian, leaning her fingers and pretending to shoot herself in the head. And it was before the same thing happened a third time, after Kasatkina broke Kerber while she was serving for the match.
Kerber just had more control when it mattered, more consistency in the clutch times. Yet Kasatkina was quite happy at the end of it all. "Today, I show, like, everything I can do," said Kasatkina, "all my strokes, all my emotions, yes, I'm losing, but in the end I'm happy with my performance. play the first quarter-final at Wimbledon, I hope a lot of Wimbledons are in front of me, I'll come back even better and show more to the crowd. "Make sure to name his name in the order of Next year's game, if she's right, it'll be something to see.
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