Breaking: Emma Raducanu's opponent withdraws (2024)

• Wins for Iga Swiatek (1) vs USA's Sofia Kenin and Brit Jack Draper on Centre
• Wins for Novak Djokovic (2) and Alexander Zverev (4)
• Rain delays affect the second day at SW19
• Andy Murray out of the singles; he'll play doubles with brother Jamie
• Watch on the BBC in the UK, ESPN and ABC in the US

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Some breaking news: 22nd seed Ekaterina Alexandrova, the Russian, has withdrawn from the tournament due to illness.

She has been replaced by lucky loser Renata Zarazua of Mexico.

Zarazua's opponent? One Emma Raducanu, the home favourite.

Somewhere in south-west London on Friday morning, the world No 2 Coco Gauff would have been forgiven for allowing herself a little smile.

On Wimbledon draw day, she was the big winner on the women’s side. As the second seed, Gauff already couldn’t face world No 1 Iga Swiatek until a possible final; given her lopsided 1-11 head-to-head record against Swiatek, that was a preexisting bonus.

But other than that, any of the remaining seeds could have fallen on her side. Half of them did — that’s how the draw works — but as the numbers came out, the toughest and most awkward ones on the SW19 grass kept falling on Swiatek’s side.

Draws are the ultimate cotton candy for tennis fans. They are irresistible.

They mean everything in a sport in which how players match up against one another can massively affect the outcome. They mean nothing in a sport in which all players have to prove themselves every day.

So, what is there to take from the Wimbledon men’s draw this year?

Novak Djokovic had his best day since undergoing surgery to repair his torn meniscus on June 5. He ended up on the opposite side of the draw to Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner, the two tournament favorites and the winners of the last two Grand Slams.

Here are the matches that will start at 11am BST (or 6am EDT for those of you waking up early in the United States…) to get us under way today.

• No 2 Court: Grigor Dimitrov (BUL) [10] vs Dusan Lajovic (SRB)
• No 3 Court: Alex Bolt (AUS) vs Casper Ruud (NOR) [8]
• Court 12: McCartney Kessler (USA) vs Maria Sakkari (GRE) [9]
• Court 18: Greet Minnen (BEL) vs Heather Watson (GBR)
• Court 4: Dayana Yastremska (UKR) [28] vs Nadia Podoroska (ARG)
• Court 5: Lesia Tsurenko (UKR) vs Varvara Gracheva (FRA)
• Court 6: Cristian Garin (CHI) vs Juncheng Shang (CHN)
• Court 7: Borna Coric (CRO) vs Felipe Meligeni Alves (BRA)
• Court 8: Jan-Lennard Struff (GER) vs Fabian Marozsan (HUN)
• Court 9: Irina-Camelia Begu (ROU) vs Lin Zhu (CHN)
• Court 10: Pavel Kotov vs Jordan Thompson (AUS)
• Court 14: Nicolas Jarry (CHI) [19] vs Denis Shapovalov (CAN)
• Court 15: Matteo Arnaldi (ITA) vs Frances Tiafoe (USA) [29]
• Court 16: Luca Van Assche (FRA) vs Fabio Fognini (ITA)
• Court 17 Taylor Townsend (USA) vs Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova [25]

The gates are open and play is scheduled to begin in one hour.

Will there be any upsets on day one of the third Grand Slam of the season?

The men’s draw for Wimbledon 2022 was a slightly weakened field, with no Russian players and ranking points taken away. Looking at it then, the thought that came to mind was: “where are the big upsets going to come from?”

Mainly because there were two players simply miles ahead of the rest. And that proved prophetic, as both Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal went through the tournament undefeated. The former won it; the latter had to withdraw ahead of his semifinal against Nick Kyrgios, because of an abdominal tear.

Two years on the picture is different, and an event that was a closed shop for so long now feels a bit more unpredictable. Taylor Fritz, world No. 13, told The Athletic that then, and up until very recently, have been pyrrhic times to play tennis on the grass.

“In that era it took just one of them to be playing incredibly well … And all of them were playing. We were younger and not as good as we are now, so it did feel like you were almost hoping that they’d have an off day and you’d have an on day.

“It’s tough.”

Last week, Andy Murray reaffirmed that the Olympics is likely to be his farewell to tennis, but added that were this injury to keep him out of both Wimbledon and the Games in Paris later in July, he would consider playing another tournament to wave goodbye to the sport on the court.

On Sunday, he reiterated that he has no plans to return to Wimbledon as a player, which is what drives his desire to have one last hurrah.

“I just want the opportunity to play one more time out there hopefully on Centre Court, and I don’t know, feel that buzz,” he said.

“Everyone has their idea of how they want to finish their career, how they would want it to go. I probably would have seen that happening at Wimbledon.”

Andy Murray says that he will make a decision on playing the Wimbledon singles tournament for a final time this evening, as he seeks to give himself the maximum possible recovery time from last weekend’s surgery on his back.

At a press conference at the All England Lawn Tennis Club on Sunday afternoon, Murray said “I don’t know if it (the operation) is gonna be enough. I don’t have have 100 per cent feeling and sensation in my leg yet, but it’s getting better.

“I’m hoping that with each day that passes that the likelihood of me being able to play will increase.

“I’m going to play another set again tomorrow. I’m doing some physical testing in the morning to see sort of how far off I am. Then I will probably make a decision tomorrow evening after that.”

Carlos Alcaraz is aiming to win his second Wimbledon title — as many as Rafa Nadal has won.

Though the 21-year-old, who won his maiden Roland Garros title last month, has someway to go until he can dream of matching Nadal’s 14 French Open titles.

• 2023: Carlos Alcaraz 🇪🇸
• 2022: Novak Djokovic (seventh title) 🇷🇸
• 2021: Novak Djokovic (sixth title) 🇷🇸
• 2019: Novak Djokovic (fifth title) 🇷🇸
• 2018: Novak Djokovic (fourth title) 🇷🇸
• 2017: Roger Federer (eighth title) 🇨🇭
• 2016: Andy Murray (second title) 🇬🇧
• 2015: Novak Djokovic (third title) 🇷🇸
• 2014: Novak Djokovic (second title) 🇷🇸
• 2013: Andy Murray (first title) 🇬🇧

Defending men’s champion Carlos Alcaraz suffered a shock loss to Britain’s Jack Draper at Queen’s Club ahead of Wimbledon starting today.

But Alcaraz, who won his third Grand Slam title with victory at the French Open last month, said the loss will ultimately help his chances this fortnight.

“I'm feeling great. Honestly, after Queen's, I had a lot of days to adapt my game, to practice, to get better,” the Spanish third seed said on Saturday.

“I remember after losing in Queen's, the next day I started practising my movement, my shots, just to be more comfortable moving on grass, playing on grass this year. I had great practices with great players just to see my level. Right now I'm ready to start the tournament.”

Serena Williams was the last woman to defend her title at Wimbledon. The person before that? Her sister, Venus, who won her fourth title in 2007 and her fifth in 2008.

• 2023: Markéta Vondrousova 🇨🇿
• 2022: Elena Rybakina 🇰🇿
• 2021: Ashleigh Barty 🇦🇺
• 2019: Simona Halep 🇷🇴
• 2018: Angelique Kerber 🇩🇪
• 2017: Garbine Muguruza 🇪🇸
• 2016: Serena Williams (seventh title) 🇺🇸
• 2015: Serena Williams (sixth title) 🇺🇸
• 2014: Petra Kvitova (second title) 🇨🇿
• 2013: Marion Bartoli 🇫🇷

The Wimbledon women’s singles has had seven different champions in the last seven editions of the tournament. Marketa Vondrousova won last year, defeating Ons Jabeur in straight sets, but knows defending her crown will be a challenging assignment.

“I feel like you just have to prepare for the stress and for the pressure,” she said on the eve of the tournament. “Now people are watching you more, expecting you to play semis or finals in every tournament. I don't think that's possible.

“You just have to take it match by match... I don't think you can feel stress-free at all when you are (number six) in the world.”

If you want to believe this is the year an American gets back into a final at Wimbledon — for the first time since Serena and Venus Williams stopped getting there all the time — go ahead. It’s still a long shot, especially on the men’s side, but somewhat less long than it used to be.

Coco Gauff has made the semifinals of the last two Grand Slams. And as the No 2 seed, she is guaranteed to avoid her main nemesis, Swiatek, until the final.

Jessica Pegula has also returned from her neck injury layoff in style. She won the Ecotrans Open grass-court title in Berlin and at Wimbledon last year, she was tantalisingly close to making her first Grand Slam semifinal before coughing up a third-set lead to eventual champion Marketa Vondrousova.

Those are likely the two best shots, but don’t count out Danielle Collins, who has cooled off a bit from her hot spring but remains a dangerous No 11 seed. Keep an eye on Alycia Parks in the draw, too. She has a game that should work well on the green stuff, especially if she serves well.

On the men’s side, Tommy Paul raised hopes on Sunday when he won the title at Queen’s Club. Paul, who rose to No 12 in the rankings with the win, didn’t have to beat a top 10 player on the way to the title but he did beat fellow American Sebastian Korda in the semifinals.

When healthy and in full flight, Korda is considered one of the best grass-court players in the world — so much so that last year he fell into the trap of believing his own hype. After saying that he felt like a favorite, he promptly lost in the first round.

Elsewhere, Taylor Fritz loves the grass and has the booming, sliding serve to win on it, and one of these days Ben Shelton, who has the boomiest of booming serves, is going to figure the lawns out too. This year is probably too soon for the Floridian, though.

There isn’t any question about who the best woman in the world is. It’s Iga Swiatek, a five-time Grand Slam champion who has dominated the top spot in the rankings for more than two years and finished the season as world No 1 in both 2022 and 2023.

And yet, Swiatek is a major question mark when it comes to the sport’s most desired title. She’s never been past the quarterfinals at Wimbledon and her game isn’t a natural fit on the grass.

Blame her uber-Western grip on her forehand, which puts her racket at a funky angle that doesn’t work so well on balls she has to strike between her ankle and her thigh. That happens a lot on grass. Blame her love of clay, where she slides all about and then dances back to the center of the court.

Blame her less-than-overpowering serve, which doesn’t provide many easy points on a surface where they are more important than anywhere else, especially against a fast server who is collecting plenty of them at the other end.

Or, blame Swiatek’s success. She wins so many clay-court tournaments, including the last three French Opens, that all that tennis leaves her exhausted by mid-June. She comes into Wimbledon again without playing a grass-court tune-up. Can anyone master grass this way?

Swiatek, a stellar athlete and sublime mover, would figure to have a better chance than anyone. If it doesn’t happen for her this year though, she has a big consolation. Right after Wimbledon, she gets to go back to the red clay of Roland Garros to try to win a gold medal at the Paris Olympics.

There’s another will-he-won’t-he in the men’s draw: two-time champion Andy Murray’s final appearance at SW19. On Thursday morning, Murray released an update: that he, like Djokovic, would wait until the last possible minute before deciding whether or not to play the singles tournament one last time.

What is more certain is that Murray’s days as a factor in the closing stages of Grand Slams are over, which means home hopes at Wimbledon will have to rest on someone else’s shoulders. The man best suited for that role appears to be Jack Draper.

The 22-year-old became the new British No 1 off the back of a very impressive grass-court buildup, winning his first ATP title in Stuttgart on June 17 and beating the Wimbledon and French Open champion Carlos Alcaraz to reach the Cinch Championships quarterfinals at Queen’s Club.

A title and a statement win were two of the main things missing from his CV, and now he’s targeting something else he’s never done: a run at Wimbledon. For obvious reasons, good progress at the London Grand Slam is what cements British players in the nation’s psyche.

Draper has the game to do something similar at Wimbledon over the next fortnight, with a wicked lefty serve and intimidating power from the back of the court into which he is newly growing.

As one of the lowest seeds at No 29, he is scheduled to play one of the top eight players in the third round should he get there, and that’s a match-up all of those eight would hope to avoid.

Has more ever depended on one player’s recently repaired meniscus? Probably not, since that meniscus belongs to one Novak Djokovic, the seven-time Wimbledon champion and the world’s best grass-court player.

Djokovic tore that meniscus in his right knee during the French Open, and the injury forced him to withdraw ahead of his quarterfinal with Casper Ruud. He had surgery on June 5 but didn’t say when he might return.

Pretty much everyone figured playing Wimbledon was out of the question and that Djokovic would focus on preparing for the Olympic Games in Paris in late July.
Then Djokovic started posting videos of his physical therapy workouts.

Then he showed up in London this week and started testing out the knee with practice sessions on the grass. On Thursday, he practiced with world No 1 Jannik Sinner on Centre Court; when asked if he would be in the draw, he simply gave a thumbs-up.

Whether he does or doesn’t play, regardless of his physical state, will have a massive impact on the tournament.

In the United Kingdom, the 2024 Championships will be shown on the BBC.

Live action will be shown across BBC One, BBC Two and the BBC iPlayer and BBC Sport website.

In the United States, the first round of play will be broadcast live across ESPN, ESPN2 and ABC.

(All times BST)

Court 4 - 11:00 START

1. Dayana Yastremska (UKR) [28] vs Nadia Podoroska (ARG)
2. Marta Kostyuk (UKR) [18] vs Rebecca Sramkova (SVK)
3. Zizou Bergs (BEL) vs Arthur Cazaux (FRA)
4. Sara Errani (ITA) vs Linda Noskova (CZE) [26]

Court 5 - 11:00 START

1. Lesia Tsurenko (UKR) vs Varvara Gracheva (FRA)
2. Zhizhen Zhang (CHN) [32] vs Maxime Janvier (FRA)
3. Anna Karolina Schmiedlova (SVK) vs Yafan Wang (CHN)
4. Mariano Navone (ARG) [31] vs Lorenzo Sonego (ITA)

Court 6 - 11:00 START

1. Cristian Garin (CHI) vs Juncheng Shang (CHN)
2. Alexandre Muller (FRA) vs Hugo Gaston (FRA)
3. Donna Vekic (CRO) vs Xiyu Wang (CHN)

Court 7 - 11:00 START

1. Borna Coric (CRO) vs Felipe Meligeni Alves (BRA)
2. Arantxa Rus (NED) vs Yue Yuan (CHN)
3. Aleksandar Vukic (AUS) vs Sebastian Ofner (AUT)

Court 8 - 11:00 START

1. Jan-Lennard Struff (GER) vs Fabian Marozsan (HUN)
2. Nao Hibino (JPN) vs Elise Mertens (BEL)
3. Eva Lys (GER) vs Clara Burel (FRA)
4. Roberto Bautista Agut (ESP) vs Maximilian Marterer (GER)

Court 9 - 11:00 START

1. Irina-Camelia Begu (ROU) vs Lin Zhu (CHN)
2. Olga Danilovic (SRB) vs Anca Todoni (ROU)
3. Lloyd Harris (RSA) vs Alex Michelsen (USA)
4. Otto Virtanen (FIN) vs Max Purcell (AUS)

Court 10 - 11:00 START

1. Pavel Kotov vs Jordan Thompson (AUS)
2. Daria Saville (AUS) vs Peyton Stearns (USA)
3. Alison Van Uytvanck (BEL) vs Yuliia Starodubtseva (UKR)
4. Sumit Nagal (IND) vs Miomir Kecmanovic (SRB)

Court 14 - 11:00 START

1. Nicolas Jarry (CHI) [19] vs Denis Shapovalov (CAN)
2. Daria Kasatkina [14] vs Shuai Zhang (CHN)
3. Karolina Pliskova (CZE) vs Diana Shnaider
4. Pablo Carreno Busta (ESP) vs Tallon Griekspoor (NED) [27]

Court 15 - 11:00 START

1. Matteo Arnaldi (ITA) vs Frances Tiafoe (USA) [29]
2. Alexander Shevchenko (KAZ) vs Ugo Humbert (FRA) [16]
3. Sorana Cirstea (ROU) [29] vs Sonay Kartal (GBR)
4. Bianca Andreescu (CAN) vs Jaqueline Cristian (ROU)

Court 16 - 11:00 START

1. Luca Van Assche (FRA) vs Fabio Fognini (ITA)
2. Daniel Altmaier (GER) vs Arthur Fery (GBR)
3. Tamara Korpatsch (GER) vs Yuriko Lily Miyazaki (GBR)
4. Qiang Wang (CHN) vs Emma Navarro (USA) [19]

Court 17 - 11:00 START

1. Taylor Townsend (USA) vs Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova [25]
2. Sebastian Baez (ARG) [18] vs Brandon Nakashima (USA)
3. Jakub Mensik (CZE) vs Alexander Bublik (KAZ) [23]
4. Paula Badosa (ESP) vs Karolina Muchova (CZE)

(All times BST)

CENTRE COURT - SHOW COURT - 13:30 START

1. Carlos Alcaraz (ESP) [3] vs Mark Lajal (EST)
2. Ekaterina Alexandrova [22] vs Emma Raducanu (GBR)
3. Caroline Dolehide (USA) vs Coco Gauff (USA) [2]

No.1 COURT - SHOW COURT - 13:00 START

1. Aleksandar Kovacevic (USA) vs Daniil Medvedev [5]
2. Emina Bektas (USA) vs Aryna Sabalenka [3]
3. Jannik Sinner (ITA) [1] vs Yannick Hanfmann (GER)

No.2 COURT - SHOW COURT - 11:00 START

1. Grigor Dimitrov (BUL) [10] vs Dusan Lajovic (SRB)
2. Stan Wawrinka (SUI) vs Charles Broom (GBR)
3. Naomi Osaka (JPN) vs Diane Parry (FRA)
4. Victoria Azarenka [16] vs Sloane Stephens (USA)

No.3 COURT - SHOW COURT - 11:00 START

1. Alex Bolt (AUS) vs Casper Ruud (NOR) [8]
2. Jasmine Paolini (ITA) [7] vs Sara Sorribes Tormo (ESP)
3. Martina Trevisan (ITA) vs Madison Keys (USA) [12]
4. Tommy Paul (USA) [12] vs Pedro Martinez (ESP)

COURT 12 - SHOW COURT - 11:00 START

1. McCartney Kessler (USA) vs Maria Sakkari (GRE) [9]
2. Matteo Berrettini (ITA) vs Marton Fucsovics (HUN)
3. Botic van de Zandschulp (NED) vs Liam Broady (GBR)
4. Brenda Fruhvirtova (CZE) vs Mirra Andreeva [24]

COURT 18 - SHOW COURT - 11:00 START

1. Greet Minnen (BEL) vs Heather Watson (GBR)
2. Gael Monfils (FRA) vs Adrian Mannarino (FRA) [22]
3. Qinwen Zheng (CHN) [8] vs Lulu Sun (NZL)
4. Mattia Bellucci (ITA) vs Ben Shelton (USA) [14]