Tennis players deal with a lot of things in their careers, from the pressure of performing at the top level to injuries, illness and facing better opponents. Casper Ruud, the No 8 seed in the men’s event this year, has been dealing with something a little out of the ordinary: a parasite.
The Norwegian was struck down by illness during his French Open semi-final last month and on Monday, after reaching the second round here for the second time in his career, he revealed the true extent of that issue.
“It was a little bit unusual,” said Ruud, who defeated the Australian Alex Bolt 7-6 (2), 6-4, 6-4. “I took some tests and found out that I had this kind of uncommon small parasite that I had been infected with, not sure where, but the most kind of normal place where you can get infected from it is through just unclean water.
“If you are unlucky, you get a drop of shower water on your lips, or most likely a vegetable, fruit or salad being washed with unclean water. It can take up to 12 days before it kicks in and you feel symptoms, so it’s very difficult to know where I got it. I was mostly in bed for 10, 11 days.”
Jannik Sinner received an early test of his title credentials as the world No 1 was pushed to four sets by Yannick Hanfmann of Germany, winning 6-3, 6-4, 3-6, 6-3.
It is 10 years since Grigor Dimitrov achieved his best result at Wimbledon, beating Andy Murray, then the defending champion, to reach the semi-finals. A decade on, the 33-year-old is back in the top 10 and showed how good he still is on grass, defeating Dusan Lajovic 6-3, 6-4, 7-5, with 45 winners, including 16 aces.
“I wish I could have done obviously better over the years, but here I’m at a place where I feel I can maybe get a step further. But I just need to look for one match at a time, to be honest.”
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Daniil Medvedev, the fifth seed, defeated Aleksandar Kovacevic in straight sets while Frances Tiafoe, the No 29 seed, came from two sets down for the first time in his career to beat the Italian Matteo Arnaldi.
