Anna Fitzpatrick’s bid to become the first British player to reach Wimbledon’s girls singles final since Annabel Croft 23 years ago came a step nearer as she showed true Yorkshire grit to win two matches in the space of an afternoon.
First she maintained her determination in the face of intense provocation to score a creditable 6-2, 0-6, 10-8 win over 13th seeded Russian Ksenia Lykina. Then she followed up with a less intense but equally stoic 6-2, 7-5 win over Gail Brodsky of the United States.
Anna is a player with real guts. She has a great attitude and refuses to give up and this was the perfect illustration.
Fitzpatrick's coach, David Sammell
Next the 18-year-old from Sheffield faces Poland’s sixth-seeded Urszula Radwanska who a year ago made it to Wimbledon’s last four in both singles and doubles. The quality of the 16-year-old’s 7-5, 6-1 win over top seed and Australian Open champion Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova of Russia was ominous but Fitzpatrick regarded the challenge philosophically and said: “I knew that I could get a long way in the tournament. So this is not a huge surprise to me.”
Fitzpatrick, part of the Monte Carlo Tennis Academy, proved she could take on the very best in junior tennis with her straight-sets win over fourth-seeded Belarussian Ksenia Milevskaya in round two. She insists this is the only junior event she will play and will return to the lower reaches of the women’s tour once Wimbledon is over.
In Fitzpatrick’s first match of the day her coach Dave Sammel was incensed after Lykina called for extended treatment to a shoulder injury after being completely outplayed in the opening set. Play was held up for nearly a quarter of an hour before the Moscow born 17-year-old returned to play the sort of tennis that suggested she had been feigning injury.
Certainly it seemed as though the tactic had served to shatter any form of momentum or rhythm established by Fitzpatrick and the deciding Champions’ Tie-break looked ominous as the lithe right-hander from Sheffield fell to a 4-1 deficit.
But there is a steely determination to Fitzpatrick’s play and she forced her opponent, a winner at highly rated Grade 1 ITF junior events in France and Japan this year, into making a series of forced errors.
Finally Lykina hit a concluding forehand long to send Fitzpatrick through and Sammel was left punching the air in delight before insisting: “Justice has been done. This win proves that fairness does eventually win through but something needs to be done about this injury time out rule because it is being abused. Anna is a player with real guts. She has a great attitude and refuses to give up and this was the perfect illustration.”
Sammel was much calmer after the win over Brodsky that saw Fitzpatrick dominate the first but labour slightly in the second before clinching victory on her second match point. The Ukrainian-based New Yorker proved an obstinate opponent but the variety of Fitzpatrick’s play, including some strong serving at the crucial phase saw her through.
“This week hasn’t taught me anything I didn’t already know about Anna,” said Sammel who has coached her since her days at the now closed Leeds Academy. “But this success has been four years in the making. It didn’t just happen overnight.”
Britain’s two last remaining hopes in the boys’ singles both met with third round exits. Graeme Dyce cut a dispirited figure after losing the first set tie-break without winning a solitary point against Lithuania’s Ricardas Berankis. Berankis was surprisingly unseeded having reached this year’s Australian Open semi-final and French Open quarters.
Try as Dyce might to play his way back into contention in the second set, the Scot’s efforts were in vain and he lost out 7-6 (0), 6-2 with Berankis firing down eight aces.
Marcus Willis, making his major tournament debut, fought nobly against the far more experienced Gastao Ministro Elias of Portugal.
The match had been halted by Thursday afternoon’s rain and resumed with Willis leading 4-3 on serve in the second set. He did not allow himself to be intimidated by an opponent who has already made his Davis Cup debut and reached the final of a senior Futures event in Spain a few weeks ago, finally though he had to accept a 7-6, 7-6 defeat.
Extended baseline rallies dominated the match with the left-handed Willis more than acquitting himself. He even registered a set point in the second tie-break but a forceful Elias crosscourt forehand thwarted the Berkshire youngster’s hopes of levelling the match and a final ace sealed victory.
