Sam Stosur stretches Rogers but bows out of Wimbledon

Evergreen Australian Sam Stosur has bowed out of Wimbledon, losing to American Shelby Rogers in her 17th Wimbledon campaign.

Sam Stosur during her first round loss to American Shelby Rogers at Wimbledon. Picture: Getty Images

Evergreen Australian Sam Stosur has bowed out of Wimbledon, losing to American Shelby Rogers in her 17th Wimbledon campaign, 6-1 5-7 6-3.

Stosur, the 37 year old veteran, and new mother of one year old Genevieve, was considered the outsider in the match, ranked 166th on the women’s rankings, but she scared the younger American with a valiant fight back to take the near hour-long second set.

Stosur was hoping to mark her selection in the Australian Olympic team with a Wimbledon appearance deep into the first week and beyond her usual first or second round loss, but a lack of match finesse told in the astounding number of unforced errors — double that of her opponent.

Stosur will be hoping to turn that statistic around when she will be the first Australian tennis player to notch up five consecutive Olympic Games appearances when she heads to Tokyo in a couple of weeks.

This month Stosur also celebrated the first birthday of her daughter Genevieve, born to her partner Liz Astling during the pandemic last year.

But on Tuesday Stosur was unable to counter Rogers’ big serve and sharp backhands which left her out of position on the court during crucial moments of the seesawing match.

Rogers ripped through the first set 6-1 in 21 minutes, bringing back uncomfortable memories of this year’s Australian Open when Stosur was bundled out in the second round in straight sets 6-0 6-1 to American Jessica Pegula.

But midway through the second set, Stosur became more comfortable on court 16 – and its distractions of being directly adjacent to the main spectator thoroughfare – and fought back to save three crucial match points in the second set.

Stosur sensed that 28 year old Rogers, the powerful hitting who also prefers the harder court surfaces, was tiring and then took next two games with some powerful crosscourt shots to win the set 7-5.

But it was Rogers who pushed an increasingly frustrated Stosur into more mistakes in the third, breaking her serve midway in the set, to take the match.