Rufus the Hawk patrols the grounds of the All England Club.
Timea Bacsinszky unleashed her inner wildlife at Wimbledon today.
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Rattled by tension after rain suspended her second-round match with Monica Niculescu, the 11th-seeded Swiss showed her lion heart rallying for a 4-6, 6-2, 6-1 victory when play resumed today.
Metaphorical motivation from coach Dimitri Zavialoff brought bite to Bacsinszky's game.
Bacsinszky uncaged her inner lion winning six straight games to close out the Romanian for the second year in a row at SW19.
"My coach was telling me before I went on court, even at my warm up, he was telling me, Well, okay, be like a lion in the cage and just leave the cage closed until you go on court," Bacsinszky said afterward. "You can open it. You decide when you open it. But just before, stay still, stay calm. But then when you're out there, you decide when. It can be later on if you feel it's later on. But just, yeah, open the gates, let the lion in the arena."
Bacsinszky went to bed last night faced with the first-time experience of resuming a match and woke up a bit disorientated.
"I think I never played the day after on the pro circuits," she said. "In juniors, yes, but not pro circuits. It was new for me. I tell you, this morning when I woke up at 6:30, I was like, first of all, where am I? I didn't realize I was in my room. Sometimes it happens when you travel a lot. I don't realize where I am, so it happened this morning, too. I was like panicked. Oh, where is everything? Ah, boyfriend is there. This is good. Safe.
"And then I was like, Oof, I have a match to play. Ah, it's Love 1 in the third. And then it's coming up again. So it's tough because you have this tension since Tuesday, actually. Not this match, but of my first round already from Tuesday, then Wednesday, then I finally played on Thursday. Then right away you have to play on Friday. Then Friday it doesn't end. The tension is still there. You have to just try to use as less energy that you can."
A year ago, Bacsinszky became the first Swiss woman since Martina Hingis in 2000 to reach the last eight at SW19. She faces Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, who beat Bacsinszky in Brisbane in January, for a spot in the round of 16.
Photo credit: AELTC