Centre Court got a sneak peak of the future on Tuesday when Angelique Kerber beat Daria Kasatkina 6-3, 7-5. There was a lot more to it than the scoreline shows. Kasatkina is 21, wickedly talented, wildly erratic, and plays the kind of tennis that makes people gasp, shout and sigh. She makes a lot of shots no one could, and misses a few no one should.
At the end of it all Kerber, 30, and the highest-ranked seed left in the draw, needed seven match points to beat her at the end of a 10-minute game that included one astonishing 25-shot rally. She will now play another young star, Jelena Ostapenko, in the semi-finals on Thursday.
So the Championships may yet get a sequel to the 2016 final, which Kerber lost against Serena Williams in straight sets. Kerber was playing the best tennis of her life back then. She won the Australian and the US Open, and finished runner-up here and in the Rio Olympics. All that success threw her. In 2017 she did not get past the fourth round in any of the grand slam tournaments, and eventually fell out of the top 20. She has been repairing her game these last few month, working on the lessons she learned in the lean times. She says she took a lot from last year’s Wimbledon in particular, when she was knocked out in the fourth round.
“Especially on the mental side,” Kerber said. She is refusing to pay attention to what is going on elsewhere, and steadfastly refuses to be drawn on how it feels to be the top seed. “There are no favourites any more. I’m not looking left or right. I’m not looking about the others. I’m really taking care about my game, about my matches, about how I play on court.”
Kerber says she has changed her game up, too, and started playing more aggressively. “I know I can really well on the defensive, but to improve my game I know that I have to go for it, to make winners as well.”
Between Kerber’s aggressive attitude and Kasatkina’s breathtaking skill, the match was a treat. The two of them know each other’s games inside out, because this was their seventh contest in the last two years, and their third in the past four months. Kerber now leads the head-to-head by four to three. If she had an edge here it was that Kasatkina is still finding her way in grand slam tennis – this was only her second major quarter-final after she lost in straight sets to Sloane Stephens at Roland Garros last month, when she was overcome with nervous tension.
Kasatkina said her nerves were not quite so tight here, but she did struggle at first. She missed a forehand long on break point in Kerber’s very first service game, and then lost her own serve through a couple of sloppy double faults, one on break point. When Kerber won the third game to love, she was 3-0 up in just under 10 minutes. Then Kasatkina really started to play.
Kasatkina has the game to win a grand slam title. She has beaten all four of the reigning champions – Garbine Muguruza, Sloane Stephens, Caroline Wozniacki and Simona Halep – in the past 12 months. She is a real wonder, all galloping backhands, deft drop shots and cunning slices, she has even honed her between-the-legs shot. She says she used to spend two hours a day practising when she was a little kid. She broke Kerber for 4-3, but was then broken back in the very next game, after another couple of double faults.
If that was dramatic, it had nothing on the second set, which was an epic – one of the best played here yet this year. It took just under an hour, and included seven breaks of serve. Kasatkina fought her way back from a break down, and then gave it away in the very next game, broke Kerber a second time, and was broken right back again. By now Kasatkina was screaming curses in Russian, cocking her fingers and pretending to shoot herself in the head. And that was before the same thing happened for a third time, after Kasatkina broke Kerber when she was serving for the match.
Kerber just had that much more control when it mattered, that much more consistency in the clutch moments. Still, Kasatkina was happy enough at the end of it all. “Today I show, like, everything that I can do,” Kasatkina said, “all my shots, all my emotions. Yes, I lose, but at the end I’m happy with my performance. I play first quarter‑final at Wimbledon. I hope a lot of Wimbledons are in front of me. I will come back even better and will show even more to the crowd.” Make sure to ring her name in next year’s order of play. If she is right, it will be something to see.
