Wimbledon storylines: Sabalenka and Gauff, Sinner and Alcaraz and no more line judges

New York Times

18 hours ago

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Is Aryna Sabalenka and Coco Gauff's olive branch a sign of things on court?
Is Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner's dominance of men's tennis about to go up another level?
Is the disappearance of line judges going to cause more problems than solutions?
And will the biggest battle at Wimbledon this fortnight be not on the court, but in it?
Wimbledon 2025 promises to be a cracker. Here, The Athletic's tennis writers, Matt Futterman and Charlie Eccleshare, chart some of the key storylines to follow over the next fortnight.
Sabalenka is having an outrageous season. She is constantly making finals. She has won tournaments in Brisbane, Miami and Madrid. She is more than 2,000 points ahead of world No. 2 Gauff in the WTA rankings race that counts points won this season.
But it also hurts her that she doesn't have the three titles she wanted to win more than all the others: the Australian Open, the French Open and Indian Wells. (And Stuttgart. The one that comes with the Porsche. She really wanted to win the Porsche. And the lost the final there. Again.)
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Sabalenka isn't great at losing, just like most champions. She finds it so crushing to lose these matches that while it's happening, while the world is watching, she's visibly miserable. She's yelling at herself. She's yelling at her box. Every champion who loses feels this way, and only some let it out. It makes Sabalenka one of the most compelling players on the tour, because fans — and her rivals' fans — live every moment with her like it's their career on the line.
After losing to Gauff at Roland Garros, Sabalenka spoke, first on court and then in her news conference, about how horribly she played. She barely gave any credit to Gauff until after the event. Then she apologized for what she called her 'unprofessional' comments, then they came to Wimbledon and made a TikTok or two. Gauff said they were good, so the rest of the world should be too. Then Wimbledon posted that on their own social media, which came off more strangely. Should a tournament be casting its top seeds as best friends? Does the tennis world not want more rivalries?
The grass suits Sabalenka. She's the favorite, hands down. She has the power for it, the serve and the movement, as well as her ever-evolving variety and touch and feel. She's only won Grand Slams on hard courts, and Wimbledon is the Grand Slam that completes a career, so the pressure is there, but she might be far enough ahead of her rivals not too matter.
Gauff's forehand grip makes it very difficult for her to win on such a low-bouncing surface. Madison Keys, who beat Sabalenka in Australia, could trouble her. Markéta Vondroušová, a potential third-round opponent, beat Sabalenka in Berlin and has won Wimbledon before. The 2022, champion Elena Rybakina cannot be discounted. Iga Świątek, who uses a similar forehand grip to Gauff, has been making the Bad Homburg grass in Germany her living room this week.
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And if Sabalenka does make the final, it's more likely than not that said final will be stressful, that she will not play a perfect match, because no one ever does.
Can she win? And if she can't, can she redirect her energy away from the way it manifested in Melbourne, Indian Wells and Paris? Sabalenka is a big Novak Djokovic fan. Djokovic is an incredible winner — obviously, 24 Grand Slams. He's also an incredibly gracious loser, in public. That's taken as the thing to be in tennis — even if some needle is good for business and for the sport.
Matt Futterman
Remember what it was like to be a tennis fan this time of year between 2006 and 2008, when Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer played in the final of the French Open and Wimbledon for three consecutive years. Federer won the U.S. Open in each of those years, and the Australian Open in 2006 and 2007.
It was an incredible rivalry and a testament to their dominance of the sport. It was great. Wasn't it?
Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner have now won every Grand Slam since the start of 2024. It's great. Or is it? And if it isn't, can anyone who's going to be contending in three years (that means anyone not named Djokovic) do anything about it?
This is the question that Holger Rune, Lorenzo Musetti, Jack Draper, Ben Shelton and some players even younger than them are going to have to start answering. Tennis, meanwhile, might have to get better acquainted with the difference between a player's ceiling and their current peak.
Draper has won a Masters 1,000 title, the rung below a Grand Slam. So has Rune. So has Jakub Menšík. Musetti has been in a final at that level. Shelton reserves his best tennis for the majors. But it's João Fonseca who gets the most adulation, who looks the player best positioned to challenge the Alcaraz-Sinner duopoly despite never being ranked inside the top 50.
Why? He's 18, sure, but Menšík is barely 19 and inside the top 20. Draper is No. 4 in the world. How can this Brazilian guy be the one compared to them?
Now we get to ceilings. Alcaraz and Sinner finished inside the top 40 in their first full seasons on the main ATP Tour. Fonseca is on his way to something like that. He has a cannon forehand. He can direct his backhand down the line almost better than he hits it crosscourt. He can take rackets out of top-10 players' hands. Just not consistently yet, and he hasn't worked out how to grind reliably when his first plan doesn't work. Menšík and Learner Tien, who Fonseca beat to win the ATP Next Gen Finals last year, are more ready for deeper runs than Fonseca is for now. For the long term? The Brazilian is ready for the biggest things in the sport.
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So is someone coming into disrupt this duopoly anytime soon? Or will Djokovic have to look at the younger generation and realize that, at least for now, he has to do it himself?
To use a favorite phrase of Sinner and Alcaraz, 'Lets' see…'
Matt Futterman
When the supposedly impregnable electronic line calling (ELC) malfunctioned at the Eastbourne Open this week, the whoops of delight from the traditionalists might have been heard over the high winds on the UK's south coast.
See, we told you.
At the first sniff of technical trouble at Wimbledon, except something even more unabashed. For the first time in the event's 148-year history, it has dispensed with human line judges in favor of ELC, which is used at all ATP Tour-level and combined events and two of the other Grand Slams but is not immune to glitches. At Eastbourne last Monday, a misleading image disagreed with the system's call during a first set tiebreak between Fonseca and Zizou Bergs.
Players are overwhelmingly in favour of ELC, because of how it removes doubt and takes away their need to self-officiate. Until this year, players had to challenge a call they disputed in a timely fashion, meaning that they had to think about their next shot, whether or not to challenge and what their opponent would do on their next shot all at once.
If the technology does fail at Wimbledon, then each court will have a couple of match officials to step in, but assuming all goes to plan, players and fans will have to get used to a relatively bare court, with the elegantly dressed line judges who have been such a feature of Wimbledon throughout its long history absent.
Will that absence be meaningful at this year's event, or will everyone get used to it very quickly and move on? Only time — and perhaps some dubious calls — will tell.
Charlie Eccleshare
Bubbling away in the background at this year's Wimbledon is the All England Lawn Tennis Club's (AELTC) ongoing legal battle over 39 new grass courts. It wants to construct them, including an 8,000-seat stadium, on the old Wimbledon Park golf course. Doing so would almost triple the size of Wimbledon's grounds and allow the AELTC to host qualifying on site, as the other three majors do.
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The Greater London Authority (GLA) granted planning permission at a hearing in September 2024, but after appeals led by the Save Wimbledon Park (SWP) group, a judicial review will take place Tuesday July 8 and Wednesday July 9 of 2025, right in the heart of the tournament's second week. During the hearing, the AELTC and SWP will outline their arguments, with a decision expected a few weeks later.
The case is proving to be a major headache for the AELTC, which is desperate to press on with its expansion plans. Not being able to host qualifying on site (and not being able to pull in the revenue that would come with that) sees it, it says, lose ground on the other three majors. At the pre-tournament briefing a couple of weeks ago, Wimbledon chair Debbie Jevans said that the need for the transformation 'becomes ever more apparent as we see our fellow Grand Slams staging fully integrated three-week events by welcoming many more spectators and staging charity and community events during the qualifying week and, crucially, providing the players with a stage benefiting their sporting excellence'.
It feels like no Grand Slam is complete these days without high-level discussions going on in the background, and this year's Wimbledon will be no different.
Charlie Eccleshare
For only the second time since 2004, there will be no Andy Murray in either the singles or doubles draws.
Last year's opening week — and most of its matches — was dominated by questions of whether he would be healthy enough to compete. Murray withdrew from the singles at the last minute on the first Tuesday, then he staggered through his men's doubles match with his brother Jamie two days later. On middle Saturday came Emma Raducanu's decision to jilt Murray at the altar of the mixed doubles event, with the Brit needing to rest her wrist for singles competition.
It's probably a relief for all involved that there is no major Murray storyline this time around. Last year was a painful end in many respects, and the rest of the event got sucked into a vortex by its gravity. The statue of him, which will arrive on the grounds in time for 2027, will have to do stand in his stead: he is not planning to attend at this time.
It will fall to one of the other Brits, like Raducanu and Draper, to step up in his absence.
Charlie Eccleshare
Tell us which storylines you are looking out for in the comments.