Trying to fathom Sloane Stephens is proving to be a near-impossible task. So brilliant last year when she won the US Open and so close to another major win when she reached the final at the French Open, the enigmatic American was eliminated in the first round on Monday, walloped 6-1, 6-3 by Croatia’s Donna Vekic, world No 55. In her last five grand slam events Stephens has either reached the final or lost in the first round. It really is all or nothing.
“I think that Donna played a good match,” said Stephens, who also lost in the first round here last year. “It was just a tough day for me. Just a lot of things weren’t going as I would have liked them to. Sometimes it happens. All things that I could have controlled, move my feet a little bit more, things like that. Like I said, just a tough day.”
The match was every bit as one-sided as it looks from the scoreline. The only time Stephens flickered into life was when she broke to lead 2-0 at the start of the second set. But Vekic, who won 20 of 23 points on first serve, broke back immediately and broke the Stephens serve twice more to clinch a comfortable victory.
After losing to Simona Halep in the French Open final, Stephens decided against playing a warm-up event on grass before coming to Wimbledon. That choice, she said, was not the reason for her defeat. “I had a good training block after the French,” she said. “I did more than I would normally do. I came in here feeling not too bad. I was feeling good about myself, the way I was playing, obviously a bit of confidence coming off a French Open final, as any player would. But today was unfortunate, unlucky. I played a good player on grass. That’s tough. Sometimes that happens.’’
It was a sweet win for Vekic, who has endured tough defeats in each of the past two years. In 2016 she pushed Venus Williams hard in two sets while last year she was in tears after she was edged out by Johanna Konta, 10-8 in the third set.
“It was a very tough match, especially losing two years ago on that court to Venus and then last year against Jo,” the 22-year-old said.
A semi-finalist in Nottingham last month, Vekic recently began working with Zlatko Novkovic, who was the fitness trainer of Ana Ivanovic, the former world No 1.
Together the pair have worked on giving Vekic more options, rather than just trying to hit winners. Against Stephens it worked to perfection and she now plays Rebecca Peterson of Sweden for a place in the third round here for the first time.
For a while it looked as if Williams might join Stephens on the sidelines. In her 21st Wimbledon the five-times champion trailed Johanna Larsson of Sweden by a set on No 2 Court but recovered well to win 6-7, 6-2, 6-1, advancing to a second-round meeting with Alexandra Dulgheru of Romania.
The second seed, Caroline Wozniacki, meanwhile, picked up where she left off in winning the Eastbourne title, cruising past Varvara Lepchenko 6-0, 6-3, while the American, Madison Keys, the No 10 seed, beat Ajla Tomljanovic of Australia 6-4, 6-2.
