Third seed Pegula suffers shock Wimbledon exit
Pegula was demolished 6-2, 6-3 by the world number 116 in just 58 minutes on Court Two.
It was a bitter blow for 2024 US Open finalist Pegula, who has never been past the quarter-finals at the All England Club.
The 31-year-old played with heavy strapping on her right knee and never looked comfortable in a lacklustre performance.
Since losing last year's US Open final against Aryna Sabalenka, world number three Pegula has been eliminated before the quarter-finals in all three of her Grand Slam appearances.
It was only Cocciaretto's second win against a top-10 player.
The 24-year-old has never been past the third round at Wimbledon and her best Grand Slam performance was a run to the last 16 at last year's French Open.
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NDTV
43 minutes ago
- NDTV
Wimbledon: Third Seed Alexander Zverev Suffers Stunning Exit, Petra Kvitova's Farewell Ends In Defeat
United Kingdom: Alexander Zverev suffered his earliest Grand Slam exit since 2019 as the German third seed was stunned by France's Arthur Rinderknech in the Wimbledon first round on Tuesday. Zverev, a three-time Grand Slam runner-up, slipped to a shock 7-6 (7/3), 6-7 (8/10), 6-3, 6-7 (5/7), 6-4 defeat against the world number 72 in a marathon clash lasting four hours and 40 minutes on Centre Court. The 28-year-old is the highest-ranked seed to fall so far in this year's men's singles at the All England Club. Zverev, who reached the Australian Open final in January, endured his latest Wimbledon flop in a tie that initially started on Monday evening. When play was halted due to Wimbledon's 2200 GMT curfew, the match was level at one-set all. But Rinderknech seized his chance once play resumed in the blazing London heat on Tuesday afternoon. Rinderknech hit 25 aces and although Zverev replied with 31 of his own, it was not enough to stave off an embarrassing defeat. Zverev has failed to make it past the fourth round at Wimbledon in nine visits to the grass-court major. He had reached at least the second round in his previous 20 Grand Slam appearances. Olympic champion out Zheng Qinwen admitted she was not focused enough after the Chinese Olympic champion slumped to a shock first-round Wimbledon defeat against world number 81 Katerina Siniakova on Tuesday. Zheng exited in the opening round for a third straight year, losing 7-5, 4-6, 6-1 to the unheralded Czech in two hours and 25 minutes in searing heat on Court Three. It is the fourth time in her past six Grand Slam appearances that Zheng has failed to get past the third round, a barren run interrupted by quarter-final runs at the 2024 US Open and this year's French Open. "I should do better in my service games. I was leading 5-3 in the first set and my concentration was not there. I gave her the game so easily. It's a pity," Zheng said. "On grass you don't get too many chances to come back. I should have taken my chances better but I'm not going to let this enter my mind. It's just one match I lost at Wimbledon. "I made a lot of mistakes. I made the match complicated. The weather was very hot but I believe I should have been more focused on the court. Maybe I should work more to be focused in the heat." After finishing as Australian Open runner-up to Aryna Sabalenka last year, Zheng won Olympic gold on the Paris clay in August, beating Donna Vekic in the final. The 22-year-old, sixth in the WTA rankings, has fared less well on the grass courts of south-west London. Following her latest Wimbledon flop against Siniakova, the Chinese star has never been past the third round in four visits to the All England Club. Kvitova Knocked Out Petra Kvitova's Wimbledon farewell ended in an emotional defeat as the two-time champion was beaten 6-3, 6-1 by Emma Navarro in the first round on Tuesday. Kvitova returned from maternity leave in February following the birth of her son Petr in 2024, but found it difficult to handle the demands of being a mother on the gruelling tennis circuit. The 35-year-old Czech announced last week that she will bring the curtain down on her career after the US Open in August. Kvitova's decision gave the former world number two, who has won 31 titles in her career, one last opportunity to return to the scene of her Wimbledon triumphs. But American 10th seed Navarro ruined her hopes of a long Wimbledon goodbye with a clinical 60-minute victory on Court One. Kvitova could not hold back the tears when she was given a standing ovation by the crowd, responding with a wave before drying her eyes. "It's very special to play on this beautiful court one more time. I wish I could play a little bit longer but it's OK, whatever" she said as more tears flowed. "This place holds the best memories I could wish for. I never dreamt of winning Wimbledon. "I will miss Wimbledon for sure, I will miss tennis but I'm ready for the next chapter as well. "I can't wait to be back here as a member. Thank you very much Wimbledon." A raw 21-year-old when she stunned Maria Sharapova to win the 2011 Wimbledon final, three years later Kvitova returned to the All England Club title match to rout Eugenie Bouchard 6-3, 6-0. Now ranked 572, Kvitova has lost eight of her nine matches since becoming a parent. But she says Wimbledon means "everything to me", an emotional connection forged not just in her tennis triumphs but also because her engagement to her coach Jiri Vanek took place on Centre Court in 2022. She rolled back the years at the start of the first set, racing into a 3-1 lead with a series of blistering winners. But the left-hander is no longer the force of old and she lost five games in a row with a host of unforced errors as Navarro took the set. By the time Kvitova lost the first two games of the second set, her fate was almost sealed. She managed one last echo of yesteryear, holding serve in the third game and celebrating with a clenched fist. That show of defiance was Kvitova's final fling as a double-fault finished her All England Club career. She bowed out with a kiss to her family in the players' box before leaving the Wimbledon stage for the last time.
News18
an hour ago
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Barbora Krejcikova Toughs It Out In Wimbledon Opener, Alexander Zverev Ousted
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The Hindu
an hour ago
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‘All rounders' don't look the part; back to the specialists, then
Watching India lose a Test in England that many thought they had sewn up early (before the threads were loosened), told us something about generational change. The flag-waving was premature. Teams need a settling-down period. Teams also need to have the right man in the right slot, not someone who on a good day can be a batter and on another day (not necessarily within the same Test) a bowler. Shardul Thakur and Ravindra Jadeja made India long for specialists. Kuldeep Yadav and one of Dhruv Jurel, Nitish Kumar Reddy or Abhimanyu Easwaran could be replacing them. Sometimes careers overlap in sports, one top player having arrived on the scene just as another is leaving. The baton exchange between Sachin Tendulkar and Virat Kohli is a good example. The two crossed each other as Tendulkar was returning after his final innings. Kohli hit the next ball for four; the continuity was uncanny. It doesn't always happen, of course. Tendulkar himself made his debut only 32 months and 11 Tests after Sunil Gavaskar played his last, but the three of them in turn became the face of Indian batting, the wicket most desired by the opposition, and in the later cases, the stars of social media as well. Sandwich generation And then there is the sandwich generation — the players whose careers overlap to some extent with one generation, but find themselves overtaken by their successors pretty quickly. The sandwich generation is caught in-between, not good enough to threaten the earlier one consistently and unable to score over the one following for reasons of age and opportunity: too much of one and too little of the other. The expression 'sandwich generation' was first used in the 1980s in a social context. It is relevant in sports too. In tennis, for example, when the Big Three of Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal began fading out, the next generation might have nursed ambitions of replacing them. These three among them have won 66 of 79 Grand Slam titles since the Swiss legend's first Wimbledon title in 2003, but it wasn't the next generation of the Medvedevs and the Zverevs who took over, but the following one of Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner. The last two are not just the future, they are very much the present, and those born in the 90s have missed the boat. When the Tendulkar-Dravid-Sehwag-Laxman-Ganguly generation was at its peak, the likes of Ambati Rayudu, Hemang Badani, Mithun Manas, Vijay Bharadwaj had to play on without with any real expectation of finding a permanent place in the national team. As the careers of the older men were coming to an end, hope might have been rekindled. But then came Kohli, Rohit, Ajinkya Rahane, Cheteshwar Pujara, and they could only watch as the new generation casually dashed those hopes. It is thus in sport; birthplace might matter, but not so much as the birth date, as many players who have had long careers in first class cricket overlapping with those of established stars have discovered. Had he been born a few years earlier or a few later, Amol Mujumdar, who made 260 on his first class debut, might have played over 50 Tests. But he was born within months of the Big Five, and that sealed his fate although he became a Ranji Trophy giant. Wheel turns And now the wheel is turning again. Kohli, Rohit and Ashwin have bid goodbye, and many of those who might have nursed ambitions of breaking in would have watched the exploits of the new generation with rising panic. The new stars — not all of them guaranteed to play for India — are mostly fearless teenagers waiting for their call while those born in the last century can see their chances begin to slip away. The captain and candidate to extend the Gavaskar-Tendulkar-Kohli line, Shubman Gill is only 25 and will be breaking the hearts of many contenders. India made five centuries in the Leeds Test, Jasprit Bumrah had five in an innings but the Test was won and lost in the third innings when India looked too easily satisfied with the early runs. Skipper Gill will learn to be tougher and more demanding; transition is never easy. Still, if only there were someone in the top half who could bowl and in the bottom half who could bat.
