 "Wimbledon 2017, Day 8 highlights: Pizza-chomping Andy Murray, Rubik's Cube-playing fans and more")
On Tuesday, Venus Williams turned back time to breeze past French Open champion Jelena Ostapenko, who was born seven months after Venus made her Wimbledon debut. Johanna Konta got the better of Simona Halep in their grudge match while Magdalena Rybarikova became the lowest-ranked woman to reach the Wimbledon semi-finals for nine years after defeating American 24th seed Coco Vandeweghe. While Day 9 promises to be an action-packed day with the men’s quarter-finals, let’s take a close look at some of the off-court highlights from Day 8 of Wimbledon 2017.
Another day added to the collection... 📼#Wimbledon pic.twitter.com/CaA9TOE3kO
— Wimbledon (@Wimbledon) July 11, 2017
Pizza eating Murray Andy Murray recalled his 2005 debut at Wimbledon when he admitted he was pretty much naive about everything. “I was enjoying pizza for dinner before facing some of the best players in the world. I was staying in the basement of a house in Wimbledon village with my mum, my brother, and (girlfriend, now wife) Kim stayed there a little bit. We just walked down the hill to the All England Club most of the time,” the defending champion told the BBC. Cooling Rubik’s Cube During the tense match between Simona Halep and Johanna Konta, one Centre Court ticket-holder was seen easing the tension by playing with a Rubik’s Cube. Umbrella group Hardy rain-soaked British fans sat on the soggy Aorangi Terrace slopes joyously waving their umbrellas in the air as they watched home-favourite Konta on the giant screen. Konta became the first Englishwoman in 39 years to reach a Wimbledon semi-final. English fans were elated about Konta’s historic Wimbledon campaign and she reciprocated the love and adulation.
A heart-warming moment...#Wimbledon pic.twitter.com/B2oNX0zxzR
— Wimbledon (@Wimbledon) July 11, 2017
Quotes of The Day “As a defending champion in 1979, my first match was on Centre Court, next one was on Court One, then Court Two, I ended up on Court Four. This has been going on for a long time. The top guys never see the outside courts. It needs to change.” — Martina Navratilova on the Wimbledon scheduling row. “Fair or not, that’s Wimbledon and they can do whatever they want.” — Goran Ivanisevic’s take on the court placings controversy. “It’s beautiful to be all ages.” — Venus Williams shrugging off her 37 years. “The same umpire gave my coach a warning last year for telling me, ‘Vamos, vamos’.” — Svetlana Kuznetsova angry that her quarter-final opponent Garbine Muguruza was not warned for ‘coaching’. “Not really. Maybe I was very small, or also I was watching more her sister playing the Grand Slam finals.” — Jelena Ostapenko struggling to recall any of Venus Williams’s five Wimbledon titles. Ostapenko is 17 years younger than the American. “Impressive. If you look at Andy walking around, he looks pretty sore.” — 2002 champion Lleyton Hewitt on how stiff-legged title-holder Murray plays through the pain-barrier. “Roger (Federer) and Rafael Nadal, if they had bad blood, would it make their rivalry any less special?” — 1989 French Open winner Michael Chang on whether tennis could do with some more bitter grudges between players. Play of The Day
A point that sums up one of the matches of the tournament...
— Wimbledon (@Wimbledon) July 11, 2017
Jo Konta and Simona Halep combine for today's @HSBC_Sport Play of the Day... pic.twitter.com/L1ayyNIOHo
Stats of The Day 23 — The number of years since the Wimbledon crowd last saw a British woman in the quarter-finals: Jo Durie in 1984. 7 — The number of countries represented in the women’s quarter-finals: Britain, Latvia, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Spain and the United States. 5 — This is the highest number of men aged 30 or over to reach the Wimbledon quarter-finals in the Open era.
