LONDON: After two hours and 23 minutes of action, the Wimbledon fourthround showdown between the big-hitting Madison Keys and the No. 7 seed Jasmine Paolini was even-steven at 5-all in the third set.
So the scoreboard said. Only the 12th-ranked Keys had taken a medical timeout at the changeover (5-4) to attend to her left hamstring, returning to the court with her leg heavily strapped. Keys, who turned the match around after a dismal first set, clutched her hamstring in the eighth game (5-2) of the decider.
It went rapidly downhill from there as the 29-year-old called a stop to her run at SW19 with the score reading 6-3, 6-7 (6) 5-5.
Earlier, Paolini, who hadn’t won a match at Wimbledon until this year, had come within two points of victory in the second-set tiebreak, which she had forced from 5-1 down.
In the third set, Paolini trailed 5-2 before mounting another fightback to make the last eight.
“Right now, I’m so sorry for Madison, to end the match like this is bad,” Paolini, the French Open finalist, said.
“I’m a little bit happy, but sad for her. In the second and third sets, I was telling myself, hang in there, in tennis you never know. I know she retired, but I’m here with a win.”
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