I’m watching the warmup with Illya Marchenko closest to me, and he’s still absolutely dwarfed by the six-nine Kevin Anderson. For me, the big South African carries a fair amount of presence on court — this is a man who beat Roger Federer at Wimbledon. In five sets. After saving a match point. I can’t wait to hear how that serve sounds coming off his racket.

I’m not disappointed — his first serve misses, but even his second, at 113 mph, sounds like a cannon shot. I barely notice that he has to hit a half-volley and misses. Anderson carries a ton of positive energy. He doesn’t do any Rafa-like vein-popping screaming celebrations, but his consistency with positive fist-pumps after he wins a point are reminiscent of the great Spaniard. He even does a little happy bounce after getting from 40-love to 40-15 in Marchenko’s first service game. 

Marchenko is wearing a backwards white cap and one of the loudest outfits I’ve seen — bright orange-red shorts and a shirt peppered with hot pinks and bright blue. Anderson’s cap is forward, his shorts black and his shirt a duller blue. It’s a nice contrast, and it’s fitting as the Anderson serve vs. the Marchenko return battle will probably decide the match.

 

Marchenko’s serve isn’t bad, either. It has about 15 mph less pop than Anderson’s, but he uses it cleverly, hitting a couple body serves on his way to holding for 1-all. 

Anderson begins the 1-all game with two monstrous aces out wide. He toes the line, bounces the ball once in isolation, then again with the help of his racket. Then a second solitary bounce, while the racket spins in his hand. He then takes a second to secure his grip on the racket. Once he gets it just so, all six feet and nine inches of Kevin Anderson spring into the air and thrash the ball with a carefully strung racket that optimizes power and control. It’s tough not to feel bad for Marchenko at times. 

Anderson is a brutal player to play at his best. He returns better than most tall guys, and makes two straight first serve returns to begin the 2-1 game. Marchenko misses on the first ball for love-15, then gets bullied around the court by Anderson’s big groundstrokes for love-30. Marchenko goes on to hold by forcing some baseline errors from Anderson, punctuating with a big serve on game point, but I can’t help but think Marchenko is going to have a really tough time going forward.

At 2-all, Anderson gets to 30-love with more unplayable attacking tennis, but Marchenko then misses two makeable backhand passes down the line. Errors like that are a ticket to either losing the set by a break or having to play a tiebreak.

Anderson’s shakier side comes into view in the next game. He makes two bad forehand errors: one way long and wide, one into the bottom of the net. Simultaneously, Marchenko makes some great serves, so he holds to love.

Anderson faces his first hint of pressure on serve at 3-all, 30-all. He misses his first serve, but his second is of similar heft to some of Brooksby and Donskoy’s firsts earlier today, and Marchenko’s return goes just long. The Ukrainian leveled at deuce, though, and his first serve return gets low enough to make Anderson net a volley. The big man slams a first serve out wide to save the break point, releasing his loudest “come on!” of the match. More good serving gets him the hold. 

As someone who’s played a small amount of club tennis at a low level, getting aced is demoralizing. In my case it was less about wishing I’d gotten a racket on the ball and more just ruing the loss of control. Standing to return a first serve and knowing an ace could come at any time is an awful feeling, and I’m sure it’s something Marchenko has to contend with during this match, along with the extra pressure on his own service games. 

Marchenko does a great job of repelling Anderson’s best return of the match, chasing down an inside-out backhand and slinging a forehand into the opposite corner to force an error. His serve is great in this game — he hits a second that visibly swerves, for a service winner, then an ace that nails the T. The icing on the cake is another service winner. That’s one way to stay with a huge server — to play their game successfully.

Marchenko hits the shot of the match to set up 15-30 on Anderson’s 4-all service game: a backhand pass down the line into the very corner. He then chases down an Anderson sink and flicks it into the very edges of the other corner. Marchenko holds up a #1 finger and the smile takes at least five seconds to leave his face. He has time on a backhand pass at 15-40 but nets it (this is the kind of miss that can cost you a set against Anderson). Anderson then blasts his way to the hold: ace, volley winner, service winner.

A bizarre turn of events with Marchenko serving at 5-6, 15-love: Anderson crushes a return onto the baseline and Marchenko misses the reply. The chair umpire then weirdly allows him to challenge the call. FoxTenn maintains that it was in, but the image on the screen looked as if the reading was taken before the ball had hit the ground. This confused Marchenko, who mentioned it to the umpire (predictably, to no effect). Rattled, Marchenko lost the next two points, then double faulted on set point. 

With Anderson serving at love-15 to begin the second, a funny sequence ensues: first serve let, first serve miss, second serve let, second serve ace. Marchenko is visibly amused.

Marchenko double faults on a big point for the second time, netting his second serve to go down a break, 0-2. Anderson consolidates quickly, and after holding two break points at 4-all in the first, this match has slipped away from Illya Marchenko in a matter of minutes. Such is the challenge of playing a server of Anderson’s ilk on grass.

At 3-1, Marchenko made his stand, getting into the return game and reaching break point after a shocking missed Anderson overhead. The 2018 Wimbledon finalist saved it with a clean forehand winner and served his way out of the game. He’s yet to be broken in the match, and has saved break point in three separate service games.

Marchenko produced a running, Delpo-esque crosscourt forehand winner to hold serve for 2-4 in the second, and celebrated with an extended fist pump. Shortly after, a rabbit ran onto the court, prompting chants of “bunny on the court! Bunny on the court!” and simply “Bunny! Bunny!” from nearby.

Anderson closed out the match with a flurry of aces. Beating a big server isn’t the toughest thing in the sport — the greats have done it plenty of times — but trying sure looks frustrating. At a set and 3-0 down, I though Marchenko’s chances of winning were low enough that I wouldn’t fault him for dropping his intensity. Instead, he battled back and nearly (but not quite) got back on serve. Anderson is definitely a threat to win this tournament. No one has more weapons or a better grass court pedigree.

I got the chance to ask Kevin Anderson a couple questions after his match, which can be read here.