The Wimbledon tennis tournament ended on Sunday in London. Spaniard Carlos Alcaras and Marketa Vondrousova from the Czech Republic became the victors of the third Grand Slam tournament of the season. The best result of the Russian participants was shown by Daniil Medvedev, who reached the semi-finals.
Defeat with a plus signRussian tennis players returned to the oldest tournament in the world after a year-long break. In 2022, Wimbledon became the only Grand Slam tournament where the organizers did not allow Russians and Belarusians. For this, the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) and the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) deprived Wimbledon of the right to award rating points to participants, turning it, in fact, into demonstration competitions. In 2023, the leadership of the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club decided to avoid repeating this story and allowed Russian and Belarusian tennis players in a neutral status, subject to the condition that they sign an appropriate declaration.
The first week of Wimbledon has become in some way a remake of the starting seven days of the French Open a month ago. The favorites slowly moved up the tournament grid, some of them stumbled and went home, but the main attention of the press was riveted to them. He, as well as at Roland Garros, was captured by Russian tennis player Mirra Andreeva.
The path to the main battles on the London courts, like a month ago in Paris, began for the rising star of Russian tennis with qualifications. Her Andreeva, although not without problems, passed — and got into a difficult opponent, the Chinese Wang Xiyu, whose resistance she overcame only in three difficult games. In the second round, the 16-year-old Russian won against Czech Barbora Kreychikova, seeded 10th. Due to an injury, the ex-champion of Roland Garros was unable to complete the match.
In the third round, Andreeva was already a full-fledged success — she took the upper hand in two games over the 22nd racket of the tournament, Anastasia Potapova. Moreover, for a compatriot, the Wimbledon courts were not just familiar — she won them in the junior category. And Mirra performed on London grass for the first time and nevertheless won a convincing victory.
But in the fourth round, Andreeva's path at Wimbledon ended. As in the French Open, she lost to a tennis player from the United States. In Paris it was Corey Gauff, in London it was Madison Keys. The match itself had the same outline: Andreeva took the first set on youthful enthusiasm, but then her opponent picked up the keys to her game and left her out of the game. But for Mirra, this defeat is a plus: it is like a brick of experience in the foundation of her future long, as everyone hopes, career.
Already after the end of Andreeva's performance at Wimbledon, Tennis World USA reported that Mirra allegedly intends to obtain French citizenship. This information was denied by Andreeva's agent Lev Kassil, stating that it is incorrect, and the tennis player has no other citizenship other than Russian.
In addition to Andreeva, only one Russian tennis player reached the fourth round at Wimbledon — Ekaterina Aleksandrova, who lost at this stage to the second racket of the world, Arina Sobolenko from Belarus.
Sobolenko, in turn, missed the chance at this Wimbledon to lead the world rankings, which she was given after the defeat of the Pole Iga Swiatek from the Ukrainian Elina Svitolina in the quarterfinals. The Belarusian lost in the semifinals to Ons Jaber from Tunisia. But she, despite the sixth seed, was not able to extract dividends from this in the decisive match, and the champion title went to an athlete who hardly anyone bet on before the start of the tournament — Marketa Vondrousova from the Czech Republic. She became the first unseeded Wimbledon winner since the introduction of the modern seeding system in 1927.
However, Vondrousova maintained certain traditions at the same time — Wimbledon is not the first time that Wimbledon has become a happy tournament for tennis players from her country. Once upon a time, the star of Martina Navratilova rose here, in the late 90s Jana Novotna won here, and in the second decade of the 21st century, Petra Kvitova won twice.
Medvedev didn't want to watch the finaleThe Wimbledon tournament this year was also favorable for representatives of Russian tennis in men's singles. Three Russians at once — Daniil Medvedev, Andrei Rublev and Roman Safiullin — advanced to the quarterfinals. It was only the second time in the «open era» of tennis that so many Russians were among the eight strongest players in a Grand Slam tournament. The previous one was at the 2021 Australian Open.
However, then the exploits of the Russian players ended. Rublev, who played several tough matches in London, including a five-set in the fourth round with Kazakh Alexander Bublik, fell short of Novak Djokovic, losing to the Serb in four games. Safiullin, who jumped, according to many, at this Wimbledon much higher than his head, lost the eighth racket of the tournament to the Italian Yannick Sinner also in four sets.
And only Medvedev managed to cope with the American Christopher Eubanks in the quarterfinals of Wimbledon. But Daniil spent five games on this match, and it was almost obvious that in the semi-finals he would not have enough strength to fight the world's first racket Carlos Alcaras. And so it happened – the Spaniard won three sets in a row, giving the Russians only three games in each of them.
But overall, Medvedev was positive about his performance at Wimbledon, saying that he was very happy to return to this tournament, and expressing the hope that in the future he will be able to improve this result. The Russian also added that he would not watch the final with the participation of Alcaras and Djokovic, because the tournament ended for him after the elimination.
Perhaps, Medvedev will later regret this decision, because the decisive match between the first and second rackets of the world turned out to be a real thriller. Djokovic won the first game very easily, and at that moment it seemed that Alcaraz would not be able to stop the Serb from winning his 24th Grand Slam title. However, the Spaniard managed to level the score in the incredible tie-break of the second installment. And in the third set, he completely defeated the titled Serb, allowing him to take just one game. Djokovic wouldn't be Djokovic if he didn't keep fighting. The result was the won fourth installment. At the very beginning of the decisive set, Alcaraz made a break and kept the advantage, becoming a Wimbledon triumph.
For the 20-year-old Alcaraz, this title was the 12th in his career and the sixth this season. This is the second victory of the Spaniard at the Grand Slam tournaments, in 2022 he became the champion of the US Open.