It’s that time of the year again when the mere sight of strawberries and cream elicits a pang of nostalgic joy in my brain. An event steeped in occasionally pedantic tradition (just ask Andre Agassi), Wimbledon was and always will be my favourite sporting event in the calendar year.
2024 WTA Tour – Grand Slam Tennis
Wimbledon Championships
All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club
1 – 14 July
There’s just something magical about this two-week window where the entire sporting world is fixated on grass-court tennis. Let’s be honest, very few people have been kicking their feet up at home to catch what is happening at Eastbourne this week.
This is the only time when people ever watch traditional grass-court tennis. That niche quality has certainly helped contribute to its elevated prestige.
Marketa Vondrousova emerged as the shock champion last year and that’s something I love about the Ladies’ Wimbledon Championships: their unpredictability. In fact, there have been seven different winners in the last seven renewals of this event.
Can Iga Swiatek join the list of all-time greats with victory in this event? The undisputed World No.1 is yet to fully convince on grass courts and many feel that she needs a Wimbledon title to solidify her legendary status.
Coco Gauff has been a model of consistency over the last few years, forcing the tennis community to reconfigure the so-called ‘Big Three’ into a newly revamped ‘Big Four’.
Aryna Sabalenka- once considered a Grand Slam underachiever- is now a two-time Aussie Open champion with the power to destroy anyone. And then you quiet assassin Elena Rybakina, calmly winning multiple tournaments each season to become one of the most feared players in the game.
Can Emma Radacanu or Katie Boulter send the home crowd into delirium with deep runs this year? There are just a million different subplots at play and this should make for a fascinating fortnight of Grand Slam tennis.
Past Champions
- 2023: Marketa Vondrousova bt Ons Jabeur (6-4, 6-4)
- 2022: Elena Rybakina bt Ons Jabeur (3-6, 6-2, 6-2)
- 2021: Ashleigh Barty bt Karolina Pliskova (6-3, 6-7, 6-3)
- 2020: no event due to Covid
- 2019: Simona Halep bt Serena Williams (6-2, 6-2)
- 2018: Angelique Kerber bt Serena Williams (6-3, 6-3)
Grass-court precursors this season
- Libema Open: Liudmila Samsonova bt Bianca Andreescu (4-6, 6-3, 7-5)
- Nottingham Open: Katie Boulter bt Karolina Pliskova (4-6, 6-3, 6-2)
- Berlin Ladies Open: Jessica Pegula bt Anna Kalinskaya (6-7, 6-4, 7-6)
- Birmingham Classic: Yulia Putintseva bt Alja Tomljanovic (6-1, 7-6)
- Eastbourne International and Bad Homburg Open: in progress
The ‘Big Four’
Iga Swiatek
Iga Swiatek has done what she does during the clay-court swing, creating a healthy gap between herself and the other women in the rankings. She has decided to eschew the grass-court precursors to give her body a chance to heal.
And I get it, the Pole has gone 45-4 in what has already been a hectic campaign. But how is she ever going to evolve on grass if she never plays on it?
She reached the quarters here last season, but I still think she will struggle to acclimate to the lower bounce. I just can’t see her making those adjustments time.
Coco Gauff
Reigning US Open champion Coco Gauff is now officially a member of the ‘Big Four’. She is 30-10 this season, winning in Auckland and picking up a further five semi-final appearances (two of those coming in the slams).
This has vaulted her to the No.2 seeding for the first time in her Grand Slam career and she should feel quite confident after a semi-final run in Berlin.
Still, I do think her presence in the ‘Big Four’ is somewhat misleading, born out of amazing consistency rather than utter dominance. I still think that the other three players have a fear-factor that Gauff simply doesn’t possess as of yet.
I probably give her a slightly better chance of winning these championships than Swiatek.
Aryna Sabalenka
I think that the third and fourth seeds are the real danger women this year. This has been a challenging season for third seed Aryna Sabalenka.
She started the year brilliantly, winning her second successive Aussie Open to underline her status as one of the world’s leading players. But she had to deal with some off-court tragedy and she is yet to win a title since Melbourne (twice going down to Swiatek in clay-court finals).
She also had to withdraw from her Berlin quarter-final with Kalinskaya due to a shoulder issue. Still, Sabalenka has turned into a Grand Slam behemoth of late and I’m sure that she will be firing on all cylinders come game time.
She has reached the quarter-finals or better in each of her last seven slams. This included a semi-final run here last season, where she somehow conspired to lose to Jabuer despite leading by a set and a break.
Her massive serve and huge groundstrokes will allow her to breeze by opponents in the early stages. I really think this could be her year.
Elena Rybakina
I also think that Elena Rybakina stands a decent chance. The Kazakh obviously won this title back in 2022 and then backed that up with a quarter-final finish last season.
She has arguably the biggest serve in the business and her no-frills, attacking brand of tennis suits these courts perfectly. She has already won three titles this season and she looks well poised for another Wimbledon title push.
Sure, she did have to withdraw from Berlin due to illness (which caused her to actually skip Eastbourne entirely). But she has been lamenting the tour schedule all season and I think she is just making sure that she is 100% ready for this title charge.
