Rain defined the opening days of Wimbledon, but drama has taken over since. We’ve seen high-impact, final-set match tiebreakers — Elina Svitolina over Victoria Azarenka, Holger Rune over Alejandro Davidovich Fokina, Lesia Tsurenko over Ana Bogdan. We’ve watched top seed Iga Swiatek face a double match point and prevail. And we’ve seen 16-year-old Mirra Andreeva reach the fourth round, while a couple of mid-20s journeymen (Christopher Eubanks, Roman Safiullin) reach the quarterfinals. We’ve even seen a number of curfew interruptions — 11 p.m.? Really, London?
Most of the top seeds have advanced. Six of the top eight men have reached the quarterfinals, as have five of the top six women. There will be loads of potential matchups in the coming rounds, starting with a rematch of the 2022 ladies’ final (champion Elena Rybakina vs. runner-up Ons Jabeur) and a battle of 20-year-olds — Carlos Alcaraz vs. Rune — in the quarterfinals.
The drama is only beginning. Even if Novak Djokovic still ends up winning the final match of the tournament as usual.
Let’s talk about the key storylines as we enter Week 2.
