Kerber curbs Zvonareva comeback at Wimbledon

LONDON, Great Britain - A historic match-up on paper was also a brilliant spectacle on court as No.11 seed Angelique Kerber came through a tough test to defeat qualifier Vera Zvonareva, 7-5, 6-3 in one hour and 23 minutes.

The first time two former Wimbledon finalists had squared off in the first round in the Open Era, the encounter pitted a Top 10 player whose 2018 has seen her, at times, recapture the form that took her to World No.1 two years ago against a 33-year-old mother playing just her fourth WTA-level main draw since her tentative return to the professional ranks last March. 

The pair are not, strictly speaking, from different generations - they are just three years apart in age - but in terms of their on-court success, they have competed in the top flight of the sport in separate eras. Zvonareva, who broke into the Top 20 as a teenager, enjoyed many of her best results in her early and mid-20s; Kerber, a quintessential late developer, has reached her peak in her late 20s. The last time Zvonareva made a Grand Slam quarterfinal was at the 2011 US Open - the very tournament that saw Kerber reach that stage for the first time.

The Russian's comeback has not seen her compete against elite players on a regular basis yet: today, she faced a Top 10 player for only the second time since January 2015. Initially, this gulf seemed to show as the 2016 runner-up leapt out to a 3-0 lead, Zvonareva's groundstrokes consistently breaking down first.

Yet any assumptions that this match would be a mere curio were swiftly dispelled as the 2010 finalist began to find her groove - and the naturally smooth hitting that took her to WTA World No.2 eight years ago. Playing with the clear head of experience, Zvonareva began to extend the rallies - and, more often than not was able to outmanoeuvre a player who has spent so much of her career out-manoeuvring the rest of the Tour.

The WTA World No.142 also showed off her speed and smarts to good effect, chasing down Kerber dropshots and responding with delicate counterdrops; forays to the forecourt paid off for the 2006 Wimbledon mixed doubles champion as well. In some ways, the contest pitted supreme counterpunchers from slightly different periods of the sport against each other - making for some increasingly spectacular, lengthy baseline battles and improvised shotmaking as the set reached its climax.

After Zvonareva hauled herself back from a 2-5 deficit, breaking to level at 5-5 in a marathon game on her sixth break point, the momentum seemed with the 33-year-old. A tiebreak seemed inevitable when she came up with two identically clean, satisfying backhand winners serving at 5-6. In the end, it took some of the two-time Slam champion's absolute best to hold the revitalised Russian off: Zvonareva, scampering and retrieving with a tenacity that belied her age, continued to defend brilliantly, but it was Kerber who was able to finish the points off as she captured one of the best sets of the tournament so far, 7-5.

If, in the second set, Zvonareva was less able to keep up with her 30-year-old opponent, dropping serve twice to fall behind 1-5, a good deal of that was to do with a liberated Kerber raising her level even higher. Dropshots that spun away from the court even as Zvonareva desperately chased them, lightning-fast redirections and the German's trademark forehand down the line were all showcased marvellously as she raised her tally of winners to 20.

The 2008 Olympic bronze medallist wasn't about to depart quietly, though, and the match grew electrifying again in the final three games as Zvonareva came up with a flurry of winners to start chipping away at Kerber's lead. Two match points were saved with edge-of-seat rallies and narrow-margin shotmaking in the last game - but in the end, a backhand wide by mere inches sealed an end to Zvonareva's first Wimbledon in four years.

From a past generation to a future one: having disposed of the 2010 runner-up, Kerber will next take on the 2017 junior champion in Zvonareva's fellow qualifier, Claire Liu, in the second round.