In a season when Iga Swiatek, Aryna Sabalenka and Elena Rybakina have carried all before them, talk of a women’s “Big Three” to match the historic rivalry between Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic has been plentiful.
Compelling though that narrative may be, however, the grass-court season has produced a more diverse range of champions. Ekaterina Alexandrova won in s’Hertogenbosch. Britain’s Katie Boulter claimed her first tour-level title in Nottingham. Petra Kvitova, twice a Wimbledon winner, was crowned champion in Berlin, while Jelena Ostapenko claimed bragging rights in Birmingham. The big three may have formed a cartel, carving up the past five grand slams between them, but other options are available, certainly on grass.
Whether that trend will continue at the All England Club is another matter. The smart money still says one of Swiatek, Sabalenka or Rybakina will lift the Venus Rosewater dish come the second Saturday. Yet a measure of doubt surrounds all three.
Sabalenka and Rybakina both come into the tournament looking a little undercooked. After suffering an unexpected defeat to Veronika Kudermetova at the German Open, Sabalenka, the Australian Open champion and world No 2, has played only two competitive matches on grass. Rybakina, meanwhile, still wrestling with the after-effects of a viral infection that forced her to withdraw from the French Open, was beaten by Donna Vekic in Berlin and subsequently pulled out of Eastbourne – hardly ideal preparation for the defence of her Wimbledon title.
As for Swiatek, everything appeared to be going swimmingly as she advanced to the first grass-court semi-final of her career in Bad Homburg. But with the Wimbledon draw in progress, the Polish world No 1 announced she was pulling out of her match against Italy’s Lucia Bronzetti due to “fever and possible food poisoning”. Swiatek has since revealed that she began to feel better later the same day, but her fitness will be the subject of close scrutiny when she faces China’s Zhu Lin on Monday.
Against this backdrop of form and fitness concerns, could the timing be right for an outsider to come up on the rails?
First quarter
Assuming she has indeed made a full recovery, Swiatek looks well placed to improve on her previous best showing in SW19, which came two years ago when she reached the fourth round. The 21-year-old’s performances in Bad Homburg suggested that she has discovered the tactical clarity and belief to do well on grass, qualities she identified as lacking following last summer’s shock third-round defeat to Alizé Cornet, which ended a historic 37-match winning streak.
Much as she did then, Swiatek arrives at the All England Club with the wind in her sails. Having won a third French Open title in four years earlier this month, she will begin her annual attempt to solve the riddle of Wimbledon’s grass on a run of 10 straight victories, and feeling better about her prospects than she has done at any time since winning the junior event in 2018.
“Last year I felt a lot of pressure here because I was No 1,” said Swiatek. “I feel like this time was the first year where I could just focus on practising and actually learning a lot, so hopefully I’m going to be able to use that in my matches.
“Getting used to the grass was always the tricky part, because when you play well at Roland Garros then you have less time to prepare for Wimbledon. But this year I feel like I’ve done a little bit more than for the past years.”
The path to a fifth grand slam title is not without pitfalls, starting with Zhu, who as the world No 33 is the highest-ranked non-seed in the draw. After reaching the last-16 of a slam for the first time at this year’s Australian Open, the 29-year-old won her maiden title in Thailand. Zhu’s best results have come on hard courts, but wins over Venus Williams and Maria Sakkari this season suggest Swiatek will need to be on her mettle.
Petra Martic, the Croatian 30th seed and a prospective third-round opponent for Swiatek, is a more assured competitor on grass, having reached the fourth round at three of the past five Wimbledons – including last year, when she dispatched Jessica Pegula in round three. Martic, though, must navigate a potentially tricky opener against 18-year-old Linda Fruhvirtova, the rising Czech world No 49, before she can contemplate any giant-killing.
Belinda Bencic, the world No 14 and another last-16 veteran, could await Swiatek in the fourth round, ahead of a projected quarter-final tussle with Coco Gauff, against whom the Pole is unbeaten in seven meetings. If the seedings hold, Swiatek will meet Pegula, the fourth seed, in the last four.
Notable first-round matches in this quarter include an all-American clash between Gauff and Sofia Kenin, the former Australian Open champion, who breezed through qualifying without dropping a set. Equally eye-catching is the meeting of Williams, the 43-year-old five-time champion, and Elina Svitolina, a quarter-finalist earlier this month at the French Open and former world No 3.
Semi-finalist: Swiatek
Second quarter
Pegula recently offered a bullish assessment of her prospects at a tournament where, like Swiatek, she has struggled to do herself justice.
“I feel good, I feel rested, and I feel like I’ll maybe have my love affair with grass this year,” she told Rennae Stubbs. “I feel like it’s coming.”
Five times a grand slam quarter-finalist – although never at Wimbledon, where she has yet to advance beyond the third round – could Pegula finally be poised for a deeper run? There are grounds for cautious optimism. Last year, the 29-year-old’s build-up to the fortnight was overshadowed by her mother’s near-fatal cardiac arrest. This time around, Pegula is better prepared, having played both singles and doubles at Eastbourne, where she was beaten in the quarter-finals by Gauff.
A navigable draw augurs well for the New Yorker, who opens against her compatriot Lauren Davis. Liudmila Samsonova, who has taken her the distance in all three of their previous meetings, could turn out to be a banana skin should the pair face each other in round four; Pegula’s only loss to the Russian 15th seed came two years ago at Wimbledon. Beyond that, she is projected to play Caroline Garcia – whom she demolished in the opening round two years ago – for a place in the last four. Garcia, seeded fifth, has won the two most recent of their four meetings.
Also lurking in this section are Kudermetova and Vekic, the 20th seed, who defeated Maria Sakkari and Rybakina on her way to the Berlin final.
Anett Kontaveit, the former world No 2 who will retire after Wimbledon, opens against Italian qualifier Lucrezia Stefanini.
Semi-finalist: Pegula.
Third quarter
This is where the fun really starts. Rybakina may have come through all three of her meetings with Swiatek this season – most notably at the Australian Open, where she went on to reach her second final in three slams – but the 23-year-old’s path to a Centre Court reunion with the Polish top seed is fraught with hazard.
The roll call of potential opponents reads like a who’s who of seasoned pros, in-form grass-courters and major champions. Round one: Shelby Rogers, who has won two of their five meetings, including the most recent on the grass courts of s’ Hertogenbosch last summer. Round two: the ever-dangerous Cornet, who would relish the chance to follow up last year’s win over Swiatek with another major upset. Round three: home favourite Boulter, the champion in Nottingham. Round four: one of Jelena Ostapenko, the winner in Birmingham last week, Beatriz Haddad Maia, a former champion in Nottingham and Birmingham, or the German veteran Tatjana Maria, a semi-finalist in SW19 last year. As if that run weren’t onerous enough, Rybakina is slated to face Ons Jabeur in the last eight, in what would be a repeat of last year’s final.
Yet nothing can be taken for granted in this stacked section of the draw. The sixth-seeded Jabeur, who starts against Poland’s Magdalena Frech, may need to negotiate a tricky last-16 meeting with two-time Wimbledon champion Kvitova. That, in turn, is assuming that Kvitova gets past Karolina Pliskova, a former Wimbledon finalist, in round three. Peril lurks at every turn.
With Sabalenka potentially awaiting in the semi-finals, Rybakina could not have been handed a tougher draw – and the task will be none the easier for the Kazakhstani if she is still grappling with ill-health and injury. Nevertheless, she believes she is prepared.
“For sure people are more focused, more motivated to play against me,” said Rybakina. “It’s a new challenge for me to be a defending champion, but I’m ready for this.”
She will need to be.
Semi-finalist: Jabeur.
Fourth quarter
What of Sabalenka’s prospects? Since capturing her long-awaited maiden grand slam in Melbourne at the start of the year, the Belarusian has been a model of consistency. Performing with newfound composure and conviction, she has reached the quarter-finals or better at all but two of the 10 events she has played this season, winning three titles and making a further two finals.
Had Sabalenka converted the match point she held against Karolina Muchova in the French Open semi-finals, she might even have arrived at Wimbledon as the new world No 1, with the third leg of a calendar year grand slam in her sights.
The big question now, as Sabalenka returns for the first time since reaching the semi-finals two years ago, is how much mental baggage she has brought with her to south-west London after a complicated campaign at Roland Garros. Despite the intense off-court scrutiny she faced in Paris, where she was repeatedly asked about the support of her native Belarus for the Russian invasion of Ukraine, it is the crushing nature of her loss to Muchova that will perhaps weigh most heavily.
“That defeat was devastating,” said British TV pundit Annabel Croft. “It will be very difficult to overcome.”
The acid test for Sabalenka, who faces Hungary’s Panna Udvardy in the first round, is likely to come in the last 16, where she is expected to cross swords with Muchova again. The Czech’s all-court game is better suited to grass than clay, and she was enthusing about her prospects at the All England Club within hours of losing to Swiatek in the French Open final.
“I look forward to playing on the grass, on the fast surfaces, that’s for sure the surfaces I prefer,” said Muchova, who can expect a stern test in her opener against Germany’s Jule Niemeier, a surprise quarter-finalist last year.
A focused and firing Sabalenka will nonetheless take some stopping in the lower half, and already the second seed has moved to ensure that she fits that description. Clearly alive to the likelihood of facing further political questions after the lifting of last year’s ban on Russian and Belarusian, Sabalenka has made it plain from the outset that she will not answer such inquiries.
“I would like to say I’m not going to talk about politics,” Sabalenka told the media on the eve of the tournament. “I’m here to talk about tennis only. Please respect that.
“If you have any kind of political questions, you can ask the WTA or the tournament. They can send you the transcript of my answers from the previous tournaments.”
Semi-finalist: Muchova.
Semi-finals: Swiatek to defeat Pegula; Jabeur to defeat Muchova.
Final: Swiatek to defeat Jabeur.