QUICK SERVED: Wimbledon Day 4 – Draper & Paul Upset, Djokovic Advances, & more

Day 4 of Wimbledon 2025, Jon Wertheim is here to recap some of the highlights! Jon’s theme for today is “The old man still has it” as Djokovic continues his run after beating Dan Evans & Marin Čilić upset the British male favorite Jack Draper. On the women’s side, Iga Swiatek, Emma Navarro, Mirra Andreeva, and Elena Rybakina all advance into Round 3. Jon covers all of this and more in today’s Quick Served. Stay tuned for tomorrow and we will see you on Day 5!

Check out the Served Merch! https://store.servedpodcast.com/

🎾 Join the Served Chucker’s Club for Exclusive Perks: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0k_–YLuTNuDvq1Dw4zHmw/join

📩 Sign up for the Served Newsletter here: https://servedmedia.substack.com/

📱If you’re new to the Served with Andy Roddick, we’re happy you’re here! Follow us for more:
https://www.instagram.com/servedpodcast/
https://bsky.app/profile/servedpodcast.bsky.social

@served_podcast

[Music] This part for the show comes from Mercury, the fintech that brings all the ways you use money into a single streamlined product because starting a business is hard enough and the stakes are too high to settle for anything less than extraordinary. Here at Serve, Mercury’s been a gamecher when it comes to organizing our invoices, tracking our billing, and most importantly being sure we can take care of the people that make this show possible with on-time payroll. Visit mercury.com to join over 200,000 entrepreneurs who use Mercury to do more for their businesses. Mercury, banking that does more. Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services provided through Choice Financial Group, column NA, and Evolve Bank and Trust members FDIC. [Music] Hey everyone, John Worththe here. It is today’s quickserve, day four, Wimbledon 2025. We are brought to you by Mercury. We’ve got a full slate of matches to get through, but before we do that, I think we need to get to the most important news of the day. Producer Mike Hayden in town for Wimbledon. I’ll ask you how your first day at the All England Club was, but just as important, how was the chicken sandwich, assuming you got it at Mesol? I did. Well, we’re current we’re currently in an Uber right now. We just crossed the river. We’re about back into town, my brother and I. We had a great day. Shout out to Sophia who let us go the wrong way into our seats at center court. Uh shout out to all the people that we walked up to me because Sophie was posting about me and they were yelling producer Mike. Uh but the chicken sandwich was absolutely phenomenal. And the waiter goes, you know, cuz we’re American. He’s like, you know, that’s Andy Rodic’s favorite sandwich. I was like, I do know that. I showed him the text message that I just sent to Andy and he was beside himself. So very cool. It was uh it’s Wimbledon Village is magical. It was one of the most beautiful sporting experiences I think I’ve ever had. The crowds were crazy. I think I texted that and John you said wait until they expand. And uh it it’s about as near perfection of a sporting event you can attend. Oh man. See after that uh the matches are secondary. You got the chicken sandwich, you got the Wimbledon experience. They did play matches though today. Um, we’ll do a full food review uh next week. But let’s talk a little bit about the tennis today. This was like uh it’s like old-timers day at the ballpark. This was the old guys still got it edition of uh tennis because uh the first match on center that producer Mike and many others saw with NovakJokovic who absolutely was in full flight. This was peak Novak. Doesn’t matter if he’s 38. Doesn’t matter if he hasn’t won a major in almost two years. This was about as clean a tennis match as you can get. He played Dan Evans. And these match stats are just it’s equally a joke and suitable for framing. I mean, you just look at these and it’s just comical. 89% first serves one, 22 of 26 at the net, broke six times, didn’t get broken once, only gave up five games to a British player. Here’s a fun fact for you, by the way. I wish I could attribute this to the person who uh who gave this to me and I don’t know who it is but um NovakJokovic has only lost to one player at their home major in his career. So Americans in the US, French uh French players at the French Open of course Aussies in Melbourne. Uh the one match he has lost to a home player at their home slam was the final in 2013 here to Andy Murray. Other than that, uh he’s pretty good road player and today was just something and he I to I’ve never seen him giddy like this. I saw him after the match um up on the roof of the media deck and he was absolutely floating. I mean, he was just a guy with 24 majors and I think he really was uh marveling at his own performance and is enough of a realist. I mean, he he said flatly, look, if I keep playing like this, I’ve got a real chance to win this event. It’s it’s one match. It’s against Dan Evans who’s who’s a nice potentially tricky player, but this is a guy who didn’t qualify for the previous major. Let’s not read too too much into one match, but Jookovic was just a joke today. And uh I think Andy’s pick that he may well find himself in another final. Uh looks looks pretty good based on today. Um other matches, Djokovic is the men’s player with the most majors actively. Who is the women’s player with the most active majors? Uh Venus Williams notwithstanding it’s Ishvantek and she has come in here with didn’t have a ton of momentum though she did reach the final in Bod Hamort just a few days ago and she is still alive she played Katie McN from Cincinnati Ohio hometown counter producer Mike uh Katie McN’s had a bit you know some injuries bit of an up and down career these two were actually junior rivals really nice to see Katie McN who’s a very talented athletic player nice hands at the net and she won the first set from EGA but then Schwhat settled and only gave up two games the rest of the Okay. Uh, speaking of being stingy with games, producer Mike, you saw this uh, Yonx Center played Alexander Vukich and uh, this was something presumably this was a a tennis match, but this was really just a clinic in precision and sort of the the machine-like tennis of uh, Yannik Center and you think NovakJokovic plays a good match with an insane stat sheet and then you look at what S did and uh, that was an impressive performance today from uh, from the second seed. Uh other winners today, Mera Andrava, a winner over Bronzetti. Bronzetti actually served for the second set and then the window shut and Mera Andrea playing her way deep into yet another major as a teenager. Elena Rabaka who won this event three years ago got by Sakuri very handily in straight sets. And then the big upset of the day, I don’t know how big an upset is if we take a step back. An upset for sure, but I don’t think quite as titanic as people will think. And that is Jack Draper, the fourth seed, the Brit, against Marin Chilich, who was a former finalist here. He’s won a major uh 36 years old, but he’s really sort of playing his way back into form and he was terrific today. Some of this is going to be the story of Draper and can he handle the nerves and was he too passive? Was he too tentative? And the answer is probably yes on the tentative side. But Marin Choich just played such an organized match against that crowd. won the first and second set, dropped the third, and you sort of figured, okay, now the guy who’s closer to age 40 than age 30 is is going to start to retreat. That didn’t happen at all. Uh, a late break from Marin Chilich. This is such a class player. This is a guy who’s been part of the tennis vermament for for 20 years. He’s won a major. Um, not that it gets him any points on the scoreboard, but just one of the all-time good guys in the sport, and that’s a big win for him. A disappointment for Jack Draper. This one will sting. The good news, he’s learning about these situations. He’s had a really good year if he takes a step back. Maybe underperformed a bit at the majors, but here we are in early July and I think he probably would have signed up for this year all things considered. Bright future for Jack Draper, but uh it was not his day today. Other winners, Alex Dimore, who just all he does is win. Um yet another, this is a guy who made four straight quarterfinals uh in majors over the last year and a half or so. And now he’s back. He beat the qualifier Arthur Kazo. Bert Krajikova, the defending champion, won again, this time over Carolyn Dolah. Why are we not talking about her more? Maybe because she’d only won three matches all year coming in because of that back injury, but we know what she can do on the surface. We also look at her performance at high stakes events. I mean, this is someone with with two majors who brings her best tennis to the most important events. Keep an eye on her. She won in three sets today. Some good news, bad news, neutral news for uh the American Male contingent. First, the neutral news. Brandon Nakushima took four sets and beat Riley Opelka. Um that was Yank on Yank action. Ben Shelton, listen to this. One game away from beating Ranky Hitchika. Imagine you’re 6275 54. One game from victory. Play is suspended. Ben Shelton will have to come back. Odds are pretty good he’ll finish off that one game and then we’ll play again on Saturday. Ben Shelton that lefty serve looking very good. not not a great grasscourt uh tuneup stretch for Ben Shelton, but he’s really brought it here and has looked very strong in his first two matches. And then Tommy Paul goes down and you know he he lost to Sebastian Offner. This really to me was as much about a clearly compromised Tommy Paul than it was the opponent. No disrespect to uh Sebastian Offner here. Offner the Austrian played very well, but but Tommy Paul still we talked about that ab injury that he suffered at Roland Garos and I think that was probably the story of the match. So, a bit of a mixed bag for the American men. Emma Navaro, who has looked very good here. Um, she is a winner. So is Gregor Deitro and so is Daria Kazatkina. Um, let’s jump ahead and look to tomorrow, shall we? We’ve got Taylor Fritz, who’s playing for the fourth time in five days against Alejandro Dvivovichina. The draw gods did Taylor Fritz no favors. Uh, two big servers, two 68 opponents. He beat both of them in Peshi Perryard and then Gabe Dio of Canada. Now he gets a much different look, a much different player in Dvidovich Fkina who’s actually a Spaniard who plays pretty well on grass a bit up and down. Taylor Fritz ought to be okay. Carlos Alcarez, very strange tournament for him so far. Had that really rough first round outing against Fabio Fonini. Went five sets. He was not at all at his best. looked a little nervous and really settled in, but did so a second round against a qualifier ranked outside the top 500. Um, and now he gets Jean Leonard Stru much more conventional opponent. Arena Sabalanka against Emiraticanu. Again, Emiraticanu looked good for two rounds. Now she gets the number one player in the world. That’s the rare third round meeting of two former major champions. Other players in action. I mean, look at this court one schedule. We talk about the upsets and what it reeks. Uh, the what what it what’s what’s a past tense of rot. uh what it what it what it what it brings with it. What what attends a lot of upsets? I’ll tell you what it attends. Here it is first Friday and this is the court one schedule. No disrespect to any of these players. This is simply a function of how deep these upsets are. Court one, Diane Perry of France against Sun Cartel, the heavily tattooed very likable uh very likable game. uh British player uh Matia Baluchcci who we talked about yesterday a fun player to watch really athletic playing Cam Nori who nice British player who’s been to the semi-finals here but came into this tournament outside the top 50 and then Alisa Merren against Alenus Vidilina that’s court one on the first Friday that really is a representation of just how deep some of these upsets went. Um other players in action, Amanda Anisa Samova, Andre Rublev, Kachinoff. Um today’s theme really was was sort of an old guy still got it because in addition to Marin Chilich age 36 and Djokovic at 38 getting it done, Gaoman Feast was a game from beating Fuvich on court 18, he did not close that match. So he’ll be back tomorrow to finish off the fifth set of that suspended match. But 38-year-old Guy on Feast also getting it done today. Um Andy will be back tomorrow. Oh, we’re going to do our uh we’re going to special feature here. We’ll see how long we continue this with. Let’s say shout out to pole worker uh Ben on 11th Street in New York City. Big fan of the podcast. How about this for an offc court story? We talk about the Alcarez Center rivalry. Here might be an even bigger rivalry this tournament and that is the All England club against the uh the the objecting neighbors who were opposed to the expansion plans that uh producer Mike mentioned earlier. Wimbleland of course trying to sort of colonize the golf course on the other side of the road from the club and it would really transform this event. It would allow a lot more fans through the gates. It would enable qualifying to be held on the grounds. There’d be another stadium. Mike, you were texting me about how much you enjoyed the experience but you didn’t realize how crowded it would be. Uh Tuesday big showdown high court in London. The objecting party is sort of going to make their final uh objection which basically uh was explained to me it was more procedure-based than than fact-based. So they’re really uh this is more sort of sometimes in the US this is the last refuge of scoundrels to uh attack the procedure rather than the merits of the case. But the objectors are going to be making their case. The all England club is going to be there defending. We’re going to have quarterfinal action on the grounds. But in some ways this existential question of whether this event is going to expand is going to be going on about 8 miles away. It’s expected there’ll be a resolution by you know by the next few weeks. I’m told it looks good for the All England Club. This will really transform this event. Uh the first thing they’re going to get do is give 27 acres of uh parkland to the public. 27 acres is you know that that’s roughly the size of rolling gar. So that’s going to go to the public before anything gets done. And then construction is going to begin to really transform this entire facility. It won’t be completed till the early 2030s. So this is not like uh a US arena where you know you may take a season off and suddenly you get to a new home. This is going to be a process and you know in theory you you could understand why the neighbors might object to five years of adjacent construction but I think this will really transform the Wimbledon experience what you experienced today Mike uh you know many more thousands of tens of thousands of more fans each day will be able to experience um anyway that’s that’s some offc court news to share uh big day Friday coming up. Hard to believe we’re only on day five of this major. Uh this has been this has been a wild ride so far and we’re going to start to see some of these pockets of the draw where uh the the upsets are going to rear their head and we’re going to see players with with big opportunity ahead. Um that will do it for quickserve day four from the All England Club. I’m John Meron. Andy will be back. You’re listening to the serve podcast brought to you by Mercury. Enjoy the tennis everyone. [Music] [Applause] Support for the show comes from Mercury, the banking product that does it all. No, seriously. No more navigating a patchwork of apps and services to keep your business finances in check. Now you can do it all. Invoices, bill pay, reimbursements, financial management, and more from one easy, streamlined product. How do I know? I’ve tried out Mercury myself. Visit mercury.com to join over 200,000 entrepreneurs who use Mercury to do more for their businesses. Mercury, banking that does more. Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services provided through Choice Financial Group column NA and Evolve Bank and Trust members FDIC.