Through two rounds at Wimbledon, 23 seeded players have lost on the men’s and women’s sides. Thirteen such men have exited. Both of those numbers are record tying since Grand Slams expanded to 32 seeds back in 2011. They will be broken if Brandon Nakashima loses his darkness-delayed match against Bu Yunchaokete (Nakashima currently leads two sets to one).
On Monday, it was Qinwen Zheng, Paula Badosa, Holger Rune, Daniil Medvedev, and Stefanos Tsitsipas hitting the exits. On Tuesday, Coco Gauff, Jessica Pegula, Alexander Zverev, Alexander Zverev, and Lorenzo Musetti also crashed out.
Some have legitimate excuses excuse. Musetti, Tsitsipas, and Badosa have been dealing with physical problems. Zheng and Gauff had tough draws against Katerina Siniakova and Dayana Yastremska, respectively. Some of the results, though, were downright inexplicable. Even in victories, the top players were not entirely convincing. As the most notable example, Carlos Alcaraz needed five sets to get past a soon-to-be-retired Fabio Fognini.
“I feel like historically Wimbledon always has so many upsets first rounds here, to be honest,” Gauff responded when asked about the carnage during her post-match press conference. “I think it’s always a topic. I think I would say really the quick turnaround most of the seeds are going deeper in Roland Garros, and then you spend like a long clay season, and then you have to come and try to adjust to grass.
“Jess won [the Bad Homburg title] on Saturday…. It’s not the easy, quick turnaround. Then if you go deep in Roland Garros, you’re debating on do I rush and play that week, or do I take time and play the week before? It’s a tricky thing.”
Perhaps even more important than a quick transition between surfaces is the surface itself. Grass can be a great equalizer. Service breaks are fewer, margins are small, and matches in general are more competitive than they are on clay and hard courts. There’s a reason why Wimbledon so frequently produces five-setters on the men’s side and three-setters on the women’s side.
Yes, the first round was chaos. But maybe–at least at the All-England Club–we should get used to it.
Ricky contributes to 10sballs.com and also maintains his own tennis website, The Grandstand. You can follow him on Twitter at @Dimonator.