Juan Martin Del Potro leaps for a ball during the quarterfinal against Rafael Nadal at Wimbledon. (Source: AP)
Wimbledon 2018 concluded over the weekend with Angelique Kerber winning her maiden women’s singles title and Novak Djokovic won the men’s crown for a fourth title at SW19. Kerber’s win came against Serena Williams in a straight set win to exact revenge for the German’s defeat in 2016 at Wimbledon. In the men’s final on Sunday, Djokovic beat South Africa’s Kevin Anderson who was playing only his second grand slam final – having played his first at US Open against Rafael Nadal and emerging second best then as well.
As always, the tournament had its share of great play and rallies. The tournament’s social media team narrowed down the best rallies from two weeks to top-10. “We need your help deciding on the best rally of #Wimbledon 2018…” they wrote while accompanying the Instagram post with videos of the rallies.
The first point features Nadal and Juan Martin Del Potro’s 4 hours, 48 minutes quarterfinal match where the Spaniard won 7-5, 6-7 (7), 4-6, 6-4, 6-4. During the match, Nadal looked to have won a point where he angled the drop shot return across Del Potro but the Argentine stretched and dove at the net to return a volley.
The second contender is from the Daria Kasatkina and Kerber’s semi-final match. In the second set, with Kerber serving for the match, the German has Kastakina stretching on the backhand before the Russian slipped but kept the point going somehow and even turned the momentum before pulling off a drop shot which Kerber chased down and then killed off the point with a volley. Breathtaking from both players.
The third point comes from the match between Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal, fourth from the women’s legends doubles match featuring Rennae Stubbs/Kim Clijsters against Cara Black/Martina Navratilova, fifth from Djokovic against Kei Nishikori, sixth from Yulia Putintseva against Magda Linette, seventh from wheelchair doubles match between Steffan Olsson/Joachim Gerard against Alfie Hewett/Gordon Reid, eighth from Aliaksandra against Petra Kvitova, ninth from Anderson vs John Isner and lastly from Mikhail Kukushkin vs Nadal.
In the more difficult choice for best shot of the Championships, it starts off with Djokovic finding the tiniest of angles available to send a passing shot beyond Nadal who looked to have the net covered. Only the Serb had different and better ideas even in the 15th game of the fifth set! Besides producing great rallies, the Kasatkina vs Kerber match had its doze of exceptional shot execution as the Russian showed with a superb drop shot from behind the baseline to catch the eventual champion off.
The third sees an outstretched full-length dive volley winner by Stefanos Tsitsipas, fourth a Del Potro bullet of a forehand, fifth a display of incredible depth in Kerber’s groundstrokes in the final against Serena, sixth a drop shot which deceived Dusan Lajovic, seventh a behind the back backhand smash by Venus Williams, eighth a brilliant half volley winner by Henri Kontinen in mixed doubles match, ninth is a backhand drop shot while going behind her by Kasatkina and lastly a tweener lob to add to his already massive list of superb shots.