Madison Keys cries on court as injury ends Wimbledon quarter-final dream

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American Madison Keys wept on Court One at Wimbledon as an horrifically timed injury forced her to retire against Jasmine Paolini of Italy.

In a hugely entertaining round-of-16 clash, No 12 seed Keys had overturned a 3-6 loss of the first set to win the second 7-6, before taking a decisive 5-2 lead in the third over Paolini, a French Open finalist last month and the No 7 seed here at Wimbledon.

Then, at 15-15, Paolini hit a backhand groundstroke deep towards the baseline, which Keys put her hand up to challenge before the line umpire belatedly called the ball out. The challenge stood, and the ball had clipped the line by about 4mm, putting Keys down 15-30. Had there been no challenge from Keys, Paolini would likely have challenged herself, but Keys played the ball back into the court, so the point would have been replayed instead of the American losing it.

From 15-30, Paolini brought up a break point, and Keys missed a forehand wide while pivoting through the shot onto her left leg, which gave way. She continued until the changeover at 5-4, when she took a medical timeout before serving for the match again.

With heavy strapping on her upper thigh, it was clear that she could not move, nor fully extend on serve, and that was when the tears began. She won some points, as Paolini went through the archetypal tennis struggle of staying in cross-court patterns against a player so injured that redirecting the ball is the route to victory, but at 5-5 was forced to quit the match.

Paolini paid tribute to Keys afterwards.

“Right now I’m so sorry for her. To end the match like this is bad.

“What can I say.. I think we played a really good match. It was tough. A lot of ups and downs. I’m feeling a bit happy but also sad for her. It’s not easy to win like that.”

Paolini will play another American, either No 2 seed Coco Gauff or No 19 seed Emma Navarro, in the quarter-final stage.

‘Something close to despair’

Analysis from Matt Futterman

The final minutes of this match could not have been more different than the preceding two hours.

This was the tightest and nerviest of roller-coaster battles, between two players who have come oh-so-close to a Grand slam summit and fallen just short. Paolini a French Open finalist, defeated by Iga Swiatek; Keys a US Open finalist in 2017, and a Slam semifinalist five more times.

And between two players who had been playing some of their best ever tennis at Wimbledon, before they met each other, and were pulled into a ferocious battle of skills and will. They had dropped just one of thirteen sets between them through the first three rounds, and the second set tiebreak that Keys won 7-5 had both players coming up with clutch winners when they needed them most. The crowd on the No. 1 Court was getting louder by the game.

And then Keys pivoted onto her left leg to spin an inside-in forehand on break point, serving at 5-2. The ball landed wide, but worse was that Keys came up wincing and hobbling. As she settled in to try to return Paolini’s serve, it started to become clear how much jeopardy she was in, and an uncomfortable murmur started to spread throughout the court.

It grew into something close to despair as the net points ensued, and from there it spiralled into over 12,000 people having to watch Keys hold off tears in the final games, when it became clear that moving across the grass was both impossible and maybe even dangerous.

When the dam broke, the air was sucked out of the stadium.

(Andrej Isakovic / AFP via Getty Images)