You'd think that when Maria Sharapova – the Russian tennis player who's ranked number 5 in the world – crashed out of Wimbledon yesterday, there would have been much dissection of her weak two-handed backhand shot. Or some such tennis chat. After all, this is the woman who earlier this year was named in *Time *magazine's '100 greatest tennis players of all time' list.
So it's a bit of a shame that instead, Sharapova, who was beaten in the fourth round by Angelique Kerber, was asked some pretty banal sexist questions about how she felt to have been knocked out at such an early stage. After the game, a journalist asked if the plus side of her defeat meant she could go and watch her boyfriend, Grigor Dimitrov, play Andy Murray that afternoon, to which she gamely replied: 'I haven't had the chance to think about that, as I just finished my game 30 minutes ago.'
After that, a second journalist put his arm down, admitting that he was going to ask the same question. The only thing that makes the whole depressing incident better? Sharapova's response: 'Wow, you guys think alike. So original.'
The Russian star wasn't the only one of tennis's greats to crash out yesterday, either. Australian Nick Kyrgios (pronounced Kirr-ees-oss), the world's 144 seed (838 last year), ever-so-cheekily beat Rafa Nadal to make it through to the quarter finals of Wimbledon.
And though our main allegiance in the tennis world should really lie with British hopeful Andy Murray, it's meant we've found a new player to get excited about.
Sporting a sort-of mohican and a left arm sleeve of tattoos, the 19-year-old, part of the competition as a wild card, did a cheeky dance after his win over the world's number two seed. And for every ace he's scored – he leads the competition for those with 113 so far – he's donating £5 to the Rally for Bally fund, a charity set up in the memory of late tennis player Elena Baltacha.
He's the first man in 10 years to debut at Wimbledon and reach the quarter-finals – the last person to do that was Florian Mayer in 2004. Plus, born in 1995 to a Greek-Australian father and a Malaysian mother, he's the first player born in the 90s to beat Nadal.
But while everyone else is hailing him Wimbledon's breakout star, Nick's latest win hasn't quite sunk in. 'It still hasn't hit me what I've done,' he told* The Guardian,* adding that it was his mother's doubt in him which made him succeed. 'I was reading a comment that she thought Rafa was too good for me. It actually made me a bit angry. You would think he’s on a whole other level compared to me. I just believed in myself that I could create some opportunities. I took them under pressure today.'
But how has he done so well? Fitness, his once-doubtful mum says: 'He was still tubby [when he started his lessons] because he didn't like to run,' The Mirror quotes her as saying. 'I keep saying to people – the best thing about that period was that because he couldn't run to the ball, he would hit it super hard to a place so that the other guy couldn't hit it back to him. He wasn't eating the wrong things, he was just eating too much, I mean Malaysian and Greek food – who could refuse! So he was hitting so hard and accurate to the corners of the court because he couldn't run after it!'
Aw! We can definitely see that his fitness has improved. Total babe.
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Picture: Getty
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.