This year’s Wimbledon tournament was disappointing for Germany’s best tennis player, Alexander Zverev. But his early end was not an isolated case.
The French Open has only been a few weeks ago, but the tennis world has turned upside down since then: While the ashes of Paris have occurred between number one and number two in the respective world rankings for both men and women, there is a real favorite extinction in the third Grand Slam of the year in Wimbledon.
From a German perspective, Alexander Zverev mainly stands out. The number three of the world rankings already failed in round one in a five -set match that lasted for over two days, on which Frenchman Arthur Rinderknech with 6: 7 (3: 7), 7: 6 (10: 8), 3: 6, 7: 6 (7: 5) and 4: 6.
In addition to Zverev, the men with Lorenzo Musetti (world ranking place 7), Holger Rune (8th place) and Daniil Medvedev (9th place) were already in the first round. The Italian Musetti, who had reached the semi -finals in All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club last year, failed in four sets on the Georgian Nikolos Basilahvili. After a 2-0 set lead, Rune had to give up the Chilean Nicolás Jarry in five sets and also Medvedev, who had actually proven a good shape on the lawn with his finals at the preparation tournament in Halle (Westphalia) on the lawn, failed to Benjamin Bonzi in four sets.
It would have been almost harder: Carlos Alcaraz, who had still triumphed at the French Open and is currently number two in the world, was about to end in the first round and had to turn a 0-2 set deficit against the Italian Fabio Fognini. With Taylor Fritz, number five in the world is now in the third round, but also needed five sets twice.
On the other hand, Frances Tiafoe, Ugo Humbert, Francisco Cerundolo, Stefanos Tsitsipas, Alexander Bucks and Matteo Berrettini were less successful. They are other prominent names from the top 35 in the world that did not make it into the third round of Wimbledon. Especially in the Bukik, who had won the tournament in Halle (Westphalia), and at Berrettini, who had reached the Wimbledon final in 2021, this comes as a surprise.
However, this year’s favorite death is not limited to the men’s competition. On the contrary: the phenomenon is even more striking for women. With Coco Gauff, the French Open winner and second round in the first round clearly failed with 6: 7 (3: 7) and 1: 6 at the Ukrainian Dajana Jastremska-and was only one of a total of five top ten players who had to cut the sails in the first two rounds.
With Jessica Pegula, the world ranking and winner of the preparation tournament in Bad Homburg already caught in round one. For Jasmine Paolini, number five in the world and the previous year’s finalist in Wimbledon, two ended in round. Olympic champion Qinwen Zheng (number 6 in the world) and Spaniard Paula Badosa (number 9) also failed in round one.
Other prominent names: Karolína Muchová, Jeļena Ostapenko, Magdalena Fręch, Donna Vekić, Marta Kostyuk, Leylah Fernandez and the Wimbledon winner from 2023, Markéta Vondroušová. They all not made it in round three.