Kontaveit bows out 

Estonia’s Anett Kontaveit disappeared from Court 18 with a wave and a tear midway through the afternoon after playing the final singles match of her career.

The 27-year-old has been preparing herself for a final goodbye from tennis here in London after announcing recently that a severe back injury will bring a premature end to her career. 

Her final appearance will be in the mixed doubles with Fin Emil Ruusuvuori. 

The former world No.2 kept the dream alive in the ladies’ singles for one more day 24 hours earlier when she beat Italian qualifier Lucrezia Stefanini in the first round, but on Thursday was no match for No.32 seed Marie Bouzkova, losing 6-1, 6-2 in just over an hour. 

Popular among her peers, both Ons Jabeur and Daria Kasatkina have been telling the media this week how sad they will be to see Kontaveit go.

“It’s breaking my heart,” Kasatkina said. “It’s very sad when a career is ending like that. But I’m pretty sure Anett, she’s going to be a happy person in life. She has so many interests.”

Tunisian world No.6 Jabeur echoed those sentiments. “I was very, very sad. I honestly tried to convince her not to, but it didn’t work. I’m definitely going to go see her and hopefully go see her in Estonia.”

Meeting of mates

Two old friends will be reunited in the third round on Friday after Stan Wawrinka earned himself a shot at the defending champion Novak Djokovic.

It will be the 27th meeting between the two Grand Slam champions with Djokovic up 20-6 across all matches since they first met in Croatia in 2006.

If Stan drills down into their Grand Slam meetings, however, the numbers look more encouraging - their eight matches at the majors have been split, and Wawrinka beat the Serb in two big finals to win Roland-Garros in 2015 and the US Open a year later.

When asked about his chances on Friday though, he was surprisingly honest.

“Hopefully I can make a competitive match, but if you will look at recent results, I don't really stand a chance.”

Still in the hunt

A couple of high-profile qualifiers made it five wins apiece in the last 10 days to move into the third round of the ladies’ singles.

Former Australian Open champion Sofia Kenin followed up her first round victory over Coco Gauff by beating Xinyu Wang and will face Elina Svitolina in the last 32. 

Sixteen-year-old Mirra Andreeva was another to win three rounds of Qualifying in Roehampton last week and on Thursday moved past No.10 seed Barbora Krejcikova when the former Roland-Garros champion retired in the second set with a foot injury.

Andreeva's journey into the third round matches her run this year at Roland-Garros where she also came through Qualifying. “It is my first experience on grass,” the teenager said.

“It's just my fifth match. I like the grass so far. I'm not playing that bad!”

Unseated seeds

Following defeat for Sebastian Korda on Wednesday, another American tipped for a deep run in the men’s singles went out on Thursday when young Swede Mikael Ymer came back from two sets down to beat No.9 seed Taylor Fritz 6-2 in the deciding set. 

The ladies’ draw also lost a name that some had been tipping for a decent Championships run too - the recent grass court champion in Birmingham, Jelena Ostapenko, who fell to Romania’s Sorana Cirstea in three sets.

Disrupting the pack

Making steady progress towards a potential fourth round meeting with Andrey Rublev, the unpredictable Alexander Bublik dispatched American JJ Wolf on Thursday for the loss of just nine games.

When his brain is engaged, the Kazakh can be one of the most effective disruptors on Tour as he demonstrated during a recent run to the Halle ATP 500 grass court title. 

Big serves, underarm deliveries, drop shots, bullet backhands, tricky slices, and a great feel around the net - you get it all from Bublik - and the data from the Championships Match Insights Team (an IBM/AELTC partnership) backs that up.

There is a huge differential in his speed of shot, a great way to upset an opponent’s rhythm.

A surprising 14 per cent of his rally balls are drop shots or short angles, and across two matches 24 per cent of his forehands have been hit with slice compared to The Championships average of just nine per cent.

His variety on the grass is unsettling opponents.

The perfect partnership

It was another good day for Brit-Aussie power couple Katie Boulter and Alex De Minaur.

Boulter became the first British player into the third round by beating Viktoriya Tomova after De Minaur had earlier taken out Belgian qualifier Kimmer Coppejans in four sets. 

On Wednesday they’d confirmed they would be giving the mixed doubles a go for the first time and it sounds like it was De Minaur who had been the one pushing.

“I've been bugging her for a while to play,” the Sydneysider admitted.

“We said we would give it a go at least one time. It’s going to be exciting. I'm going to enjoy it.”

New this year:

See the draw like never before, with interactive Path to the Final view of the draw by clicking a player’s name on the draws page

See the projected Path to the Final of every player in the Gentlemen’s and Ladies’ singles draws with IBM Likely to Play

View how favourable or difficult a player's draw is, with IBM AI Draw