Wimbledon’s Grass Leaving Some Players Feeling ‘Bad at Tennis’

“Just very, very hard,” he said.

Then there is Andrey Rublev, another Russian, who described grass as a maddening, anxiety-provoking form of tennis, with short rallies and results that could seem illogical.

“You feel so confident, and then you go on court and the guy, he makes four aces, two returns, unreal — out of nowhere, he breaks you, and the set is over,” Rublev said. “And maybe sometimes you feel super tight, like, I cannot move, I cannot put one ball in the court. And then the guy does two double faults, and the ball hits the frame of your racket and goes in, you break him, and then you win a set.”

Medvedev doesn’t even think playing the preparatory grass tournaments makes much of a difference, because grass is different in Germany, the Netherlands and the various locales in England. He said that the field courts at the All England Club played extremely fast and that the stadium courts were slow.

Will he ever feel at home on the grass? After his second-round win on Friday, he said he might be getting closer.

“Maybe at the door,” he said. “Not inside, but at the door.”

As for Ruud, he said after his loss that he would keep trying but that winning Wimbledon might not be in the cards. Every time he cuts loose on his lethal forehand, he feels as if he is going to tumble and get injured because of how he lands and then has to push off to chase the next shot.

He did enter the men’s doubles tournament, which allows him to stick around for a bit before he gets back to some clay court tennis in Europe later this month.

He may have a motivation outside tennis. The Weeknd was scheduled to play in London this weekend.