The 137th version of The Championships, the annual Wimbledon pageant, graced the All England Lawn Tennis Club from July 1st-14th.
The storied SW19 location showcased a bundle of surprises and the wet 2024 version could have been aptly re-named “The Championships… The Amazements And Rain”.
Musings…
Adding the “Venus Rosewater Dish” to her trophy collection Barbora Krejčíková accomplished a rare double becoming a member of both the singles and doubles Last 8 Clubs at all the major championships. Only the fact she hasn’t reached the Mixed Doubles quarterfinals at The Championships keeps her from a Last 8 Club career sweep.
In a tournament interview, the resident of Ivančice in the Czech Republic, who was coached early in her career by the late Jana Novotná, the 1998 Ladies’ winner, said, “…being here at the Wimbledon, being part of the competition and being part of the traditions, I mean, strawberries and all white, all this… It’s something that I like that’s little bit also part of my personality. I like all this history stuff and the tradition.”
Jasmine Paolini of Italy was the first women’s competitor since Serena Williams in 2016 to reach the finals in Paris and London. She was also the first performer since Venus Williams in 2002 to lose in the trophy rounds at both Roland Garros and The Championships.
Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard of France became the first Lucky Loser to reach the fourth-round since Dick Norman of Belgium in 1995. Mpetshi Perricard finished on the short end of a 4-6, 6-3, 6-3, 6-2 contest with Italian Lorenzo Musetti, who progressed to the semifinals. (Norman lost 7-6(6), 6-3, 6-4 to Gentlemen’s singles finalist Boris Becker.)
Markéta Vondroušová, the first unseeded Ladies’ champion in 2023, drew as much attention with her left-handed serve as she did with the sketch pad collection of tattoos on her arms. This year, the Czech Republic resident lost 6-4, 6-2 in the first-round to Jéssica Bouzas Maneiro. It was the first Grand Slam match the Spaniard had won, and Vondroušová became only the second defending champion in the Open Era to depart after the first-round.
In 1994, Lori McNeil of the US defeated Stephanie Graf of Germany, the three-time winner, 7-6, 7-6 in the first-round. Bouzas Maneiro won two matches at SW19 before a lower back problem forced her to retire in a third-round against Krejčíková. Her accomplishment surpassed the total number of victories she had in her WTA career.
Ranked No. 122 at the beginning of The Championships a year ago, Emma Navarro lost in the first round. In 2024, the South Carolina resident had a different mindset. As the 2021 NCAA Women’s Singles champion revealed, “I’m believing that this is possible as it’s happening. I’m starting to think, ‘Why not me? Why not? Why can’t I make a quarterfinal run? Why can’t I go deep in Grand Slams?’”
Waylaying Naomi Osaka 6-4, 6-1 in the second-round led to her 2-6, 6-3, 6-4 defeat of Diana Shnaider, the Russian who won the WTA 500 warm-up event, the Bad Homburg Open. Coco Gauff was next to fall… and Navarro dismissed her, 6-4, 6-3 resulting in a “Why not” spot in the Ladies’ quarterfinals.
There…Paolini was magnificent, and Navarro was woeful as the 6-2, 6-1 score suggests… But she embraced the situation saying, “It’s exciting to know I have that level inside of me. I know I’ll keep improving on it. I know this isn’t the last time I’m going to be in the quarterfinals of a Grand Slam.”
(Followers of the game will recognize the Navarro name because Beemok Sports, her father Ben’s company, owns the Charleston and Cincinnati Open WTA and ATP tennis tournaments.)
At The Championships last year, Christopher Eubanks was charismatic… Thanks to being 6’7”, playing an attacking “no holds barred” style, being television commentator eloquent with a background at Georgia Tech University, he had “Watch Him” qualities. That was obvious after he qualified and went on to win his first ATP title on the lawns of the 2023 Mallorca Championships. At SW19 he continued his magnificence slipping past Stefanos Tsitisipas of Greece 3-6, 7-6, 3-6, 6-4, 6-4 in the fourth-round. In the quarterfinals he played an epic match against Daniil Medvedev finally losing, 6-4, 1-6, 4-6, 7-6, 6-1.
One of the rigors of tour tennis is that last year’s successes catchup with a performer when he/she is forced to defend the points earned the next season. In cataclysmic back-to-back performances, Eubanks was staggered 6-3, 3-6, 6-1 in the first-round of the Mallorca Championships by Jakub Mensik of the Czech Republic then French qualifier Quentin Halys was 6-4, 6-4, 6-2 better in the opening round of The Championships.
(The losses resulted in his ranking almost doubling to No. 130.)
A Sun Tapestry
Lulu Sun is a tapestry… Born in Te Anau, New Zealand to a Croatian father and a Chinese mother, she qualified for The Championships. That she did is almost incidental because of her “Who she is…” prologue. As a youngster, she spent time in Shanghai before moving to Geneva at the age of five. Her travel itinerary didn’t stop in Switzerland.
She began her junior career as Lucija Radovčić and as a teenager played as Lulu Radovčić. Injuries sidetracked her move into the professional ranks but because her mother had always stressed the importance of education, she decided to attend the University of Texas… and earned an undergraduate degree in International Relations and Global Studies in a three-year sprint. Fluent in English, French and Mandarin, she led the women’s team to the 2021 NCAA Championship.
Now remember the details are not an AI creation…The match score was 3-3 and Sun from Geneva, playing No. 3 for Texas, faced Pepperdine’s Taisiya Pachkaleva from Moscow. A minute over four hours, a cramping Sun earned a 6-4, 6-7, 7-5 victory to give Texas the title 4-3.
But that barely skims Sun’s surface… She represented Croatia between 2011 and ’13; Switzerland (where her mother lives and she sometimes resides as well as spending time in New Zealand) 2013 –’24; and in April she played for New Zealand for the first time as member of the 2024 Billie Jean King Cup team.
Having only four wins in a two-year WTA career, the 23-year-old, lefthander’s SW19 performance was enthralling. She opened play shocking Zheng Qinwen of China, the No. 8 seed, 4-6, 6-2, 6-4, and followed up with two more escapes. The first was a 4-6, 6-3, 6-2 decision over fellow qualifier Yuliia Starodubtseva of Ukraine then a telling 7-6, 7-6 conquest of Zhu Lin of China.
That set the stage for an impressive 6-2, 5-7, 6-2 fourth-round dispatching of Great Britain’s “Dear” Emma Raducanu, a wild card attempting to regain the form evidenced when she was the 2021 US Open champion.
In the quarterfinals, Donna Vekić of Croatia summoned the mettle to end Sun’s run, 5-7, 6-4, 6-1.
Ruia Morrison, a Māori tennis legend who in 2021 was honored as a Dame Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit, reached the fourth-round in 1957 and ’59 which previously had been the best tournament showing by a woman from New Zealand. Sun added to her CV by becoming the first qualifier since Kaia Kanepi of Estonia, in 2010, to reach the quarterfinals.
In a Washington Post interview, she clarified what was involved deciding which country to represent saying, “It was definitely difficult because I grew up a little bit in New Zealand. I was born there. My family is still there. I grew up in Switzerland as well. Both countries are dear to me. It wasn’t an easy decision, because it never is when you have to choose between two things. It will always be all the countries that I have been in and have grown up or have a link to; they will always be within me in a way. I don’t think that’s ever going to leave.”
Which is the reason Lulu Sun delighted so many by being…Lulu Sun.
Courting Time And Emotions…
Daniil Medvedev put into practice the fabled Rolling Stones’ anthem, “Time Is On My Side” surviving a four hour, 38 minute 7-6, 4-6, 7-6, 2-6, 6-3 Gentlemen’s quarterfinal tussle with Jannik Sinner of Italy, which was the tournament’s longest match.
Paolini’s two-hour, 51 minute 6-2, 4-6, 7-6 conquest of Vekić was the longest Ladies’ semifinal ever.
The Championships was Vekić’s 43rd appearance at a major and she had lost in the first round 20 times. During her ordeal with Paolini she was emotive…matching rage with tears.
Jagged emotions were also on display in the second-round all-British contest between Katie Boulter and Harriet Dart.
Dart, who trailed 6-2 in the Match Tiebreak, was expressively frustrated…Yet she was able to regain emotional control and watch her opponent self-destruct with the finish line in sight. Boulter committed a whopping total of 75 unforced errors throughout the match losing 4-6, 6-1, 7-6 (10-8).
German Alexander Zverev closed out his third-round match with Brit Cameron Norrie 6-4, 6-4, 7-6 (15) in a Tiebreak that lasted 29 minutes.
Daria Kasatkina dispatched Yuriko “Lily” Miyazaki, the polyglot Brit, who was Tokyo born, lived in Switzerland, and attended the University of Oklahoma, earning an undergraduate degree in mathematics and a master’s degree in information technology management, in the Ladies’ second-round, 6-0, 6-0 in 50 minutes.
There were 37 five-set Gentlemen’s matches played which broke the record set at the 1983 US Open and 2024 Australian Open. Taylor Fritz’s revival after losing the opening two sets against Zverev was the tournament’s standard setting 11th five-set resuscitation. The American downed the German, 4-6, 6-7, 6-4, 7-6, 6-3 in the fourth-round.
During the tournament 764 matches were played but the 107 contested on July 10th was a single day record.
So was the 20-point, 14 minute, seven deuces first game of the Gentlemen’s final. Carlos Alcaraz finally broke on the fifth break point and went on to defend his title 6-2, 6-2, 7-6 over last year’s finalist Novak Djokovic.
Seven different players have won the last seven Ladies events, dating back to Serena Williams claiming her seventh title in 2016.
Shared Similarities…
There was more to the Harri Heliövaara and Henry Patten tale than being the Gentlemen’s Doubles champions. The Finland-Great Britain pairing began in April, and they survived three championship points before slipping away with a 6-7, 7-6, 7-6 victory over Australians Max Purcell and Jordan Thompson
But beyond being the first unseeded winners in 10 years when Vasek Pospisil and Jack Sock captured the trophy in 2014, they shared similarities which bolstered their trophy winning…
Education played a critical role in Heliövaara’s career. He stopped playing in 2013 and entered Aalton University in Espoo, Finland. In less than four years he earned an undergraduate, along with a Masters, degree. In addition, because aviation has always been a passion, he began each day at 5 a.m. helping departing passengers at the Helsinki Airport. While helping others he helped himself, meeting Sini. She was working at the airport; they began dating which, eventually, led to marriage.
Ankylosing spondylitis, an inflammatory disease that affects the spine, brought Heliövaara’s career to a supposed end. But three years after he left the tour, doctors discovered a medication that brought relief, enabling his return to competition… But there are more layers to Heliövaara’s AELTC adventures.
After discussing the situation with his British partner Lloyd Glasspool, he remained at home in Helsinki during The Championships last year because Sini was scheduled to give birth to their second child (a boy who has an older sister born in May 2021).
Education has been equally important to Patten. He played intercollegiate tennis at University of North Carolina Asheville then earned a graduate degree at Durham University located in northeast England. During his summer breaks in 2019 and ’20, he worked as an IBM courtside statistician at the tournament.
With the triumph, he became only the third British player since 1936 to earn the coveted trophy. (Jonathan Murray teamed with Frederik Nielsen of Denmark in 2012 for the title and last year, Neal Skupski and Wesley Koolhof of the Netherlands were the winners.)
During the trophy presentation Patten told the crowd, “…You’re all amazing out there. It couldn’t have been a closer match. I can’t really remember what happened. I’m sure Harri’s the same…”
Rain, Rain Wouldn’t Go Away…
The London Metropolitan Weather Office noted that the sun had been hiding in the first week of The Championships with rain arriving almost every day. Perhaps to overcome the gloom it also advised “… the weather has not been as inclement as in 1989. That year, incessant rains prevented the tennis from being played during the first five days of the first week….” Returning to this year’s tournament, the Met Office also stated “a month’s worth of rain – 52.6mm – fell in the first nine days…” in July.
The weather dramatically affected the match scheduling. Playing catch-up, it was decided that a Mixed Doubles match, if the score was a set apiece, would be decided by a 10-point Tiebreak. The final, expected to be played on Thursday, was moved to Sunday and followed the Gentlemen’s title round. (No doubt the tournament was grateful that the Mixed Doubles draw was 32 teams and not 48.)
Other format adjustments included the Gentlemen’s and Ladies’ Doubles finals taking place after the Ladies’ final.
Tournament Director Jamie Baker observed, “This gives us the maximum flexibility to complete The Championships on time and to play all of the respective finals on Centre Court.”
Everyone had to adjust, and, in some cases, it was costly… Marta Kostyuk of Ukraine was in the “Waylaid” category. She played more than four hours of Ladies singles and doubles, losing a day to relax because of rain rescheduling, before facing Madison Keys of the US in the third-round. Her 6-4, 6-3 defeat was not surprising but that her engine was running only on fumes could not be dismissed.
Records indicate The Championships had been without rain intrusions in 1931, 1976 and ’77, 1993, 1995, 2009 and ’10 and 2019.
Sally Bolton, AELTC’s CEO, told reporters, “The weather has been so terrible that perseverance in the queue has been even greater this year than it ordinarily is.
“We’re never about maximizing our attendances, we’re all about protecting the queue and making sure that we have still got that accessibility, accepting that as a result of that was some variability on the numbers that we will end up achieving. This year the weather has been so variable and so bad at times, that at the moment our assessment is it’s almost certainly the weather that’s impacting it.”
First week attendance dropped from 293,681 in 2023 to 282,955 even with the two covered courts. The total for The Championships was 526,455… And it was speculated that between £275,000 (US$357,802.50) and £300,000 (US$388, 502) would be need to be expended, if everyone asked for a refund of the purchase price of their ticket(s).
Injury Plague
A case of the plague was last reported in London in 1679. That was 345 years ago, yet The Championships was ravaged by a plague of injuries…Which led to the premature end of matches and walkovers in the singles, doubles and mixed events.
The pre-tournament casualty list included four Ladies’ competitors (a 30-year record), and five Gentlemen, establishing a trend that carried throughout the fortnight. In several cases the results were ironic.
Lucas Pouille had not played a major in two years until he qualified for The Championships. In his second-round match against Australian Thanasi Kokkinakis, who like the Frenchman survived a five-set first-round battle, Kokkinakis was forced to retire trailing 5-2 in the third set. An abdominal injury then forced Pouille to gift Alex de Minaur a walkover in their third-round encounter. The Australian returned the favor when a hip injury forced him to withdraw from his quarterfinal match with Novak Djokovic.
In another quarterfinal, Daniil Medvedev outlasted Jannik Sinner, 7-6, 4-6, 7-6, 2-6, 6-3. Though Sinner finished the contest, he had to leave the court so his blood pressure could be evaluated. Following the match he explained he had felt dizzy and ill.
A round earlier Grigor Dimitrov raced to a 3-0 lead against Medvedev, but the Bulgarian slipped, midway through the first set, took a medical timeout but was unable to move and retired down 3-5.
In the fourth-round, Taylor Fritz of the US, having lost the first two sets, outlasted Alexander Zverev. At the end, the German, who was hobbled by a right knee bone bruise, and after candidly expressing his unhappiness with the demonstrativeness of some of those in Fritz’s Player Box, said, “I played on one leg…”
It was almost “What goes round, comes round”… In his quarterfinal against Lorenzo Musetti, the Italian was serving 5-1, 30-15 in the fifth set when Fritz’s knee buckled, and he went down. Once the American recovered, his 22-year-old opponent, who had his best Grand Slam tournament result ever, served out the set.
The Ladies’ fourth-round match between Jasmine Paolini and Madison Keys was “drammatica” … It told the tournament’s catastrophic injury story better than any other encounter. Keys, ahead 5-2 with two breaks in the third set, was serving for the match and began having trouble with her left hamstring. The American did everything she could. She had treatment initially on court then took an off court medical time out, but Paolini would not be denied. The effervescent Italian triumphed 6-3, 6-7, 5-5, Retired.
In another fourth-round retirement, Elena Rybakina, the Moscow born Kazakhstani Ladies’ 2022 champion, received a fourth-round pass from Anna Kalinskaya who was down 6-3, 3-0 and called for a trainer who worked on her shoulder and neck before she conceded.
Bouzas Maneiro put on a SW19 performance to remember until she was forced to retire in the third-round with a lower back problem trailing Krejčíková, 6-0, 4-3.
In his second-round match Arthur Fils had just lost a match point missing a “gimme” forehand, but diving for the ball Hubert Hurkacz of Poland damaged his right knee which gave the Frenchman a 7-6(2), 6-4, 2-6, 6-6 (9/8) retirement decision.
Beatrice Haddad Maia of Brazil, in another second-round fast finish, was ahead 3-0 when Camila Osorio of Colombia retired with a left thigh injury.
The decimation continued in the Gentlemen’s/Ladies Doubles and Mixed Doubles. A sampling of the breakdowns included (and no medical reasons were provided for the results):
- Marcel Granollers of Spain and Horacio Zeballos of Argentina received a second-round walkover against Nicolas Mahut of France and Skander Mansouri of Tunisia.
- Sebastian Ofner and Tristan-Samuel Weissborn of Austria were up 4-3 in the second-round when they retired against Sebastián Báez of Argentina and Dustin Brown, who previously represented Germany but who now represents his childhood home of Jamaica.
- Lyudmyla Kichenok of Ukraine and Jeļena Ostapenko were given a second-round walkover by Anna Blinkova and Mayar Sherif of Egypt
- Kichenok and Mate Pavić of Croatia continued the trend, forfeiting to Máximo González and Ulrikke Eikeri of Norway in the Mixed Doubles.
John Peers of Australia and Nicole Melichar-Martinez of the US didn’t even take to the court once… Melichar-Martinez’s right leg injury forced them to pull out of the Mixed Doubles allowing Charles Broom and Emily Appleton, alternates from Great Britain to take their spot in the draw.
The damp weather proved a blight on the grass courts forcing the ground staff to cover and uncover them regularly throughout the event… This unsatisfactory situation offered a flood (no pun intended) of reasons for the slipping and sliding and subsequent injuries. Pundits discussed the dimples on various grass court tennis shoes. In fact, a year ago, BBC mentioned that Rod Laver had played a match in the 1960s in spikes; was reprimanded by the AELTC and the footwear hasn’t been used since.
Following her 7-5, 6-3 fourth-round loss to Krejčíková, Danielle Collins of the US candidly explained, “…It’s amazing how I think on the grass, how much the movement is in your mind, and you think about every little step that you take. I feel like I stopped thinking about that for one second, and I ended up hurting my leg. So that was pretty frustrating, really disappointing.”
This year the situation was frightful which left some wondering… With all the scientific advances that have been made recently and the trumpeted claims by tournament officials that the “grass is better this year” why do the lawns still have “off years…”
Another Roving Ambassador…
Lulu Sun seemed to be a “Roving Ambassador” for country representation but she wasn’t alone…
Jan Choinski, a towering 6’5”, was born in Koblenz, German. The 28-year-old subscribes to being Polish/German/British. His father is from Poland; his mother is from Southampton, Great Britain. They met as contract ballet dancers in Germany, and later opened a ballet school in the country.
He represented Germany until the end of 2018, then became British which is the reason he was given a Championships wild card for the second straight year… And lost 7-5, 4-6, 2-6, 7-5, 6-2 to Luciano Darderi of Argentina.
Murray’s Farewell
In 1778, Scottish poet Robert Burns, wrote “The best laid schemes of mice and men oft’ go awry…” which appeared in “To a Mouse”. Since Andy Murray was born in Glasgow, Scotland, it is a fitting way to write about his last appearance at The Championships. That line from Burns best describes what took place.
Murray had hoped to finish his SW19 career playing all three events, but in mid-April it was announced that he would have a “procedure” which turned out to be the removal of a spinal cyst. The surgery eliminated any chance of playing the Gentlemen’s singles, which he won in 2013 and 2016, (putting Fred Perry’s ghost to rest with the first British triumph in 77 years), a final time.
He was, though, able to play Gentlemen’s doubles with his brother Jamie. They faced Rinky Hijikata and John Peers on Centre Court where the Australians earned a 7-6, 6-4 victory. Loss aside the crowd was enchanted by the play and the “Thank You, Andy” tribute that followed. Since he had been part of the Big 4, there were videos from Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, along with one from Venus Williams. Djokovic, standing courtside, was another of the notables honoring Murray.
Fortunately, the acknowledgement was meaningfully crafted…leaving Murray, as could well be expected, emotional at the program’s conclusion…
But there was still a final match; he was supposed to partner Emma Raducanu in Mixed Doubles…But the day before she played Sun, Raducanu withdrew, abandoning Murray, claiming “stiffness in her wrist” made her unavailable.
A number of those who have been around the game for a bit thought the move was self-defining. Some went further suggesting that not playing was disrespectful not only to Murray and all he means to British tennis but to The Championships itself.
One observer lamented, “She could have gone out…seen how her wrist felt and if necessary… ‘bunted a few around’…”
Andy deserved more…so much more.
Not To Be Overlooked…
Having participated is an honor… To leave The Championships with a trophy is beyond fulfilling… As it was for:
Kateřina Siniaková of the Czech Republic and Taylor Townsend of the US – Ladies’ Doubles
Jan Zieliński of Poland and Hsieh Su-wei of Taiwan – Mixed Doubles
Nicolai Budkov Kjær of Norway – Boys’ Singles
Alexander Razeghi of the US and Max Schönhaus of Germany – Boys’ Doubles
Renáta Jamrichová of Slovakia – Girls’ Singles
Tyra Caterina Grant and Iva Jovic of the US – Girls’ Doubles
Alfie Hewett of Great Britain – Gentlemen’s Wheelchair Singles
Alfie Hewett and Gordon Reid of Great Britain – Gentlemen’s Wheelchair Doubles
Diede de Groot of the Netherlands – Ladies’ Wheelchair Singles
Yui Kamiji of Japan and Kgothatso Montjane of South Africa – Ladies’ Wheelchair Doubles
Niels Vink of the Netherlands – Quad Wheelchair Singles
Sam Schröder of the Netherlands and Niels Vink – Quad Wheelchair Doubles
Takahiro Kawaguchi of Japan – Boys’ 14
Jana Kovačková of Czech Republic – Girls’ 14
Simply Put…
Carlos Alcaraz, the 21-year-old Spaniard, was scintillating defending his Gentlemen’s title, downing Novak Djokovic, 6-2, 6-2, 7-5. Djokovic, though, was no less mystical throughout the fortnight having had his right meniscus repaired on June 5th.
In a meeting of 28-year-old contemporaries, the 5’11” Barbora Krejčíková was bewitching as she crafted her way to the Ladies’ title over the 5’4″ Jasmine Paolini, 6-2, 2-6, 6-4.
The Championships lived up to its motto, “Always Like Never Before…”
Title photo by Simone Kemler