Breaking new ground
Zero. Not a word you hear much at the All England Club, or anywhere else in tennis, where the umpires soften it to ‘love’. But zero is the total number of matches Emma Navarro and Jasmine Paolini had won on the Wimbledon grass before this summer’s Championships.
One of those women – as they play on Tuesday – is about to reach the semi-finals, where she could face qualifier Lulu Sun, who also didn’t have a Wimbledon win until this Fornight.
A year ago, Marketa Vondrousova became Wimbledon champion – the first unseeded ladies’ singles winner in history – having previously only won one match on these lawns.
If that was shocking at the time, we could be looking at Navarro, Paolini or Sun going from zero to lifting the Venus Rosewater Dish in the space of one game-changing, life-altering Fortnight.
With two wins over Grand Slam champions – against Naomi Osaka in the second round and then eliminating fellow American Coco Gauff in the fourth round – Navarro is through to a first Slam Quarter-final. Paolini, an Italian who played in her first Grand Slam final on the Roland-Garros clay last month, has been showing that she is now a force on any surface.
Closing in on greatness
‘Every saint has a past, every sinner has a future,’ reads the tattoo, an Oscar Wilde quote, on the arm of British tennis player Daniel Evans.
Well, maybe not every sinner, but certainly Jannik Sinner, whose immediate future could be looking very good indeed.
The first Italian to be No.1 seed in the gentlemen’s singles, he is now only three matches away from becoming the first man from his country to win The Championships.
Sinner, who took his first Grand Slam title at this year’s Australian Open, has a quarter-final meeting with Daniil Medvedev.
Still shining
“The only Sun we had this week is Lulu,” Stefanos Tsitsipas, the Greek men’s player, wrote on social media.
If the weather hasn’t always been kind this summer, that hasn’t interrupted the improbable rise of Sun, with the New Zealander’s sequence of seven victories – three in Qualifying and four in the main draw – taking her into the last eight.
It was Emma Raducanu who showed at the 2021 US Open that it’s possible for a qualifier to land a Grand Slam title.
Sun, in her first appearance on Centre Court, played some classy tennis to defeat the Brit and reach her first Slam quarter-final.
Sun’s opponent is Croatia’s Donna Vekic, who, like every other woman in the bottom half of the draw, has never been this far before.
Setting the scene
Bag the title at Queen’s Club and you receive an enormous trophy, which must be among the largest in tennis.
Just as significant is the psychological lift before going into The Championships.
Carlos Alcaraz’s victory in Kensington last year gave him the assurance he needed before going on to win the gentlemen’s singles here too.
Now the Spaniard meets this summer’s king of Queen’s, American Tommy Paul, who has made the quarter-finals at the All England Club for the first time.
Diede the Great
Seemingly unstoppable, Dutchwoman Diede de Groot is attempting to win a 15th consecutive Grand Slam title in the wheelchair ladies’ singles.
The 27-year-old world No.1 has 41 Grand Slam titles to her name - 22 in singles.
"It's like a culture where the grass brings so much peace, but also the history here.
"It's always very special to come back here."
She plays Japan’s Momoko Ohtani in the first round.
