For 66 horrible minutes Victoria Azarenka forgot how to play tennis. Centre Court is an unfortunate setting for a bad day at the office and there was nowhere for the former world No 1 to hide when the wheels fell off, leaving her bemused audience to wonder if it was kinder to look away and let her suffer in private.
Rarely can Azarenka have experienced such a dramatic collapse. All Simona Halep had to do was wait for the former Australian Open champion to miss. And, boy, did she miss a lot, three double-faults and 33 unforced errors the tale of a 6-3, 6-1 defeat by Halep, who cannot have imagined her progress into the fourth round of Wimbledon would be so straightforward.
Remarkably Azarenka made the faster start, attacking the seventh seed’s serve to lead 3-1, but the world No 40 proceeded to lose 11 of the next 12 games and her low mood was summed up by the moment when she received a code violation for racket abuse at the end of the first set.
With Halep shifting uncomfortably up the other end, Azarenka stirred momentarily at the start of the second set. The ailing Belarusian toughed out a service game and soon earned a break point. But Halep saved it and the Romanian cruised to a focused victory.
Karolina Pliskova was happy to pass a tricky examination against the dizzyingly unusual game of Hsieh Su-wei, a player who struggles to find hitting partners because of her penchant for unorthodoxy. “You want to play normal tennis and not this tennis in practice,” Pliskova said earlier this week – and it was difficult to know if theNo 3 seed was complimenting Hsieh or aiming snark her way.
Whatever Pliskova’s intentions, her comment certainly added some edge to the opener on Centre Court. If nobody enjoys taking on Hsieh, it is because the 33-year-old from Chinese Taipei has worked to hone her style and is capable of executing it to cutting effect. At 5ft 7in she has to find ways of making the tour’s giants unsteady on their feet and she does so by throwing her opponents off with improvised guile, endless chopped slices and even the odd two-handed forehand. The combination is bewitching when it comes together.
Yet while Hsieh is an expert safe-cracker, the rangy Pliskova’s method of banging down doors with heavy groundstrokes and big serves tends to elicit greater rewards. Pliskova, triumphant at Eastbourne last week, should have a better record at SW19 – the former world No 1 has never made it past the fourth round – and she eventually sussed Hsieh out before winning 6-3, 2-6, 6-4.
“She can make you feel ugly,” Pliskova said. “It’s tough to prepare because sometimes I don’t think she even knows what she’s going to play. You have to be ready for everything.”
Pliskova next plays another Czech after Karolina Muchova, the world No 68, used her variety to secure a polished 7-6 (7), 6-3 victory over Estonia’s Anett Kontaveit, the 20th seed.
There were strange scenes during Zhang Shuai’s surprising 6-4, 6-2 win over Caroline Wozniacki, who appeared to blame HawkEye for several lost points during her defeat by her unseeded Chinese opponent. “How are we playing with HawkEye that is this bad?” the 14th seed asked the umpire during the second set. “This is not fair. It’s so ridiculous. This is absurd. That one was far out, this one was maybe close, but it’s out. It’s crazy. Obviously it’s wrongly put.”
The umpire appeared to sympathise with the Dane when he said: “I understand your point but there is nothing I can do. We have to go with that.”
Wozniacki, who lost her way after squandering a 4-0 lead in the first set and an early break in the second, was somewhat more diplomatic after the match. “I thought there were a few ones that I saw way differently,” said the 28-year-old. “But it is what it is. You can’t really change a HawkEye call. Maybe it was right. I just saw it differently. But you trust HawkEye normally. You trust that it tells you the right thing.
“Sometimes you do see the balls a little differently than what the HawkEye is. At least you know you can get it out of your mind. I do believe that it was not in the ideal place today.”