WIMBLEDON, England - Madison Keys arrived to her third-round match at Wimbledon on Saturday afternoon with a seven-match winning streak and a small amount of white tape on her right thigh.
'That was just precaution,' Keys said of the tape. 'It was tight. I didn't want it to go.'
But in the middle of the second set against Yaroslava Shvedova, the pain switched to her left leg, perhaps because of compensation.
'I was thinking, you know, 'Try to get through the set, maybe it could finish, have the next day to recover, try to get better,' ' Keys said.
The match was called for darkness before a second-set tiebreaker was to begin, and Keys was helped off the court by a trainer. Even in the limited light, tears shone off her face, borne from a mix of the injury and her uncertainty about what would come next.
'It was definitely mostly pain,' she said. 'But it was also realizing, you know: This hurts really badly; I don't know what's going to happen.'
Two days later, Keys warmed up with heavy taping but decided she could not continue. She pulled out with a left adductor injury just before her match was scheduled to resume Monday morning, giving Shvedova a spot in the fourth round with a 7-6 (7), 6-6 victory.
'I had so much tape on me I could barely walk,' said Keys, who won her first career WTA title on the grass at Eastbourne the week before Wimbledon began. 'It just wasn't happening.'
That was true of the whole American contingent at Wimbledon. Five American women - Keys, Serena Williams, Venus Williams, Alison Riske and Lauren Davis - reached the third round, but all of them lost.
No American woman will be in the Round of 16 at Wimbledon for the first time in 101 years, since 1913. That year, only one of the 42 women in the field, Elizabeth Ryan, was an American (there were 40 British women and a German). Ryan, who was born in Anaheim, Calif., but lived most of her life in Britain, lost in the first round to Dora Boothby, 6-4, 4-6, 6-3.
Last year, no American man reached the third round for the first time in 101 years, ending a streak that had lasted since 1912.
This year, John Isner reached the third round, resetting the streak of Americans reaching that moderate milestone back to one. But Isner, the No. 9 seed, lost his postponed third-round match against No. 19 seed Feliciano López on Monday, falling, 6-7 (8), 7-6 (6), 7-6 (3), 7-5.
López, a strong server who has excelled on grass, had done well at two Wimbledon warm-up events, reaching the final of the Queen's Club and winning Eastbourne. Isner was disappointed that his match was not played Saturday as planned. He thought he might have had an advantage against a possibly fatigued opponent.
'At the time he needed it a lot more than I did because I didn't need it at all,' Isner said of the delay. 'I was feeling great. On top of that, he's won so many matches on grass already, including this tournament and the previous two tournaments. As far as guys seeded 17 to 32, he's maybe the toughest guy there is.'
Isner, along with the rest of the American contingent, now returns to the American hardcourt circuit. Doctors have told Keys that recuperation should take only two weeks. She said she hoped to continue her breakthrough summer on the hardcourts in Washington a month from now.
But this is the first time since 1911 that no American men or women reached the Round of 16 in singles here.
Isner was indifferent when told of yet another new low point in recent American tennis history.
'I didn't know that,' he said. 'Don't really care, either.'
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