Injuries, More Injuries, Stunning Upsets and Other Wimbledon Weirdness Adrian Dennis/Agence France-Presse - Getty Images John Isner was was forced to retire on a wild Day 3 of Wimbledon. The tennis year was full of riveting story lines: the dominance of Serena Williams; the triumphant comeback of Rafael Nadal; the long-awaited Wimbledon title for Andy Murray and Britain; a record-setting year for the Bryan brothers; the steep decline of Roger Federer. But no single day was more memorable to this harried reporter than June 26, the third day of my first Wimbledon. Nadal's first-round loss two days earlier, one of only seven losses he would have all year, should have been an omen. But I had barely settled into my desk at the All England Club before the next harbinger came. John Isner injured his knee three points into his second-round match and retired after 15 minutes. About an hour later, Victoria Azarenka's knee, twisted in a gruesome fall in the first round, forced her to withdraw. Player after player paraded into interview rooms not to talk about wins and losses but shoulders and knees and the unusually slippery grass. By the end of the day, seven players had withdrawn or retired because of injuries. Soon, top players were coming in to talk about losses, too. By the end of the day, 12 seeded players, including seven former No. 1s, had lost. Before the seven-time Wimbledon champion Roger Federer and 116th-ranked Sergiy Stakhovsky began the final match on Centre Court, the nervous jokes had started about how a Federer loss would be the most appropriate ending to the day. When Federer fell behind, two sets to one, reporters from all over the world were grumbling at their TV screens, "We don't need any more news today!" (It was not a slow news day for sportswriters anywhere. Across the Atlantic, New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez was arrested and charged with murder.) Of course, Federer lost, his earliest exit in a Grand Slam tournament in 10 years. That was how the day had to end. Thus, hashtags were born: #wimbledone, #wimblegeddon, #wimbleweird. By the time Williams lost in the fourth round a few days later, who could be surprised anymore. It might have been an utterly strange, once-in-a-lifetime day, but it told a bigger story, one that did not end on that wild Wednesday. Isner's early exit was perhaps the most painful symbol in a historically bad year for American men in singles. Marin Cilic called it a "very black day" when he withdrew that afternoon with a knee injury. But a few months later, it was revealed that Cilic had withdrawn after learning he had failed a doping test at a tournament a few months before. After her loss to a qualifier that day, Maria Sharapova played only one more match on tour this year, hampered by injuries. Even Federer's shocking loss was merely the biggest blip in a year full of them.