With grass having become such a specialized surface that’s rewarded players who have mastered its every nuance, there have been few surprises over the years at the sport’s most prestigious tournament, Wimbledon.
This year, conventional thought went by the wayside, with twists and turns on and off the turf.
Well before the first ball was struck, the All England Club made a statement on the global political front by banning Russian and Belarussian players from competing after the invasion of Ukraine. That prompted a response from tennis’ governing bodies—the ATP, the WTA and the ITF—to strip the tournament of ranking points.
Despite the controversy, the tournament went on, with the singles fields altered by the ban: Among the women, five players slated to be seeded were out, and on the men’s side, it was three, including world No. 1 Daniil Medvedev, who reached two finals during the grass-court stretch.
With second-ranked Alexander Zverev missing the tournament due to injury, Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal were the top seeds. Djokovic, whose year had been drama-filled to that point, survived a five-setter against Jannik Sinner in the quarterfinals in his march to the final.