Tennis world shocked by Alejandro Davidovich Fokina’s “crazy” move at Wimbledon

Wimbledon was left in utter disbelief at the demise of the five-set third-round epic between Holger Rune and Alejandro Davidovich Fokina when the Spaniard inexplicably pulled an underarm serve late in the fifth-set tiebreak. Fokina, ranked 34th in the world, was on offer with the semi-final delicately poised at 8-8 when she pulled off an underarm serve that she later admitted was “nervous”.

With the entire crowd in shock after Rune easily won a point in the armpit before winning the match 6-3, 4-6, 3-6, 6-4, 7-6 (10/8), Fokina candidly admitted after the match that she was “s**t myself” in a moment of high pressure. Clearly frustrated with himself, he told reporters after the match that there was no way to describe what was going through his head when he attempted the underarm.

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Fokina has had a somewhat unfortunate habit of making strange decisions at crucial Wimbledon moments. As I remember, he tried to shoot between the legs in the first round of the match ball last year. This foul would send the match to five rounds.

Then in the second round he lost to Jiri Vesely after smashing the ball out of bounds when facing a match ball – lost in the second round on penalty points. While he said he was happy to be healed this time, it was still a disappointing way to bow out.

I have to accept what happened. I was fucking myself and I didn’t want to play that point, he told reporters.

I can’t explain what’s going through my mind at that moment because you have a lot of things going through your mind, everyone’s shouting and you’re nervous. I can’t explain to you what’s going on in my head.

However, Fokina had no regrets and called the shot simply “second pass”. Asked if he would make the same decision again, he added: “Why not?”

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The 24-year-old, who is ranked 34, insisted he was looking at the match positively, saying: “I’m not going to regret anything. I’m happy with this match I did because I struggled on the grass and how I played today and I convinced myself that I have a lot of things in me.”

However, tennis fans on social media disagreed. High-profile journalist Ben Rothenberg called it “one of the most earth-shattering brain farts I’ve ever seen on a tennis court”.

Alcaraz fends off Nicolas Jarry to reach Wimbledon fourth round

Meanwhile, world number one Carlos Alcaraz, who was touted as the only realistic challenger Djokovic this fortnight, joined Serbia in the fourth round after defeating Nicolas Jarry. But it took the Spaniard four sets and nearly four hours to get past a player who had not played at Wimbledon for four years and had won just one match here before this week.

However, the Chilean Jarry is a player who is on an upward curve, having risen from 152 at the beginning of the year to 28 at the top of the world. Still, it looked like it was all plain sailing as Alcaraz won his 17th straight game with a single. break.

But in the second-set tie-break, Alcaraz dropped a forehand into the net to drop a set for the first time since playing Arthur Rinderknech in the first round at Queen’s last month. Alcaraz regained the initiative to take the third set with a lone break.

However, the indefatigable Jarry found a second wind and broke again early in the fourth, before a false challenge by Alcarazi – who ended play only to find Jarry’s return had cut off the baseline – left him livid with himself.

But Alcaraz convinced herself to break back at 3-4 and then showed why she is the top-of-the-tree player with an unstoppable backhand to break before serve in a hard-earned 6-3 6-7 (6) 6 -3 7-5 win.

with AAP

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