50 Parting Thoughts From 2026 Wimbledon

Emptying out the notebook from Wimbledon 2026. Thanks for your Sports Illustrated reading, your Served listening and your Tennis Channel viewing.

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1. Jannik Sinner defended his title and is the 2026 Wimbledon men’s singles champion. Avoiding the heat that brought his doom at the previous major, he simply got better as the tournament progressed. A year ago, he had 20 career titles. This was his 30th. That’s how dominant he’s been.

2. Linda Nosková broke through, winning the Wimbledon women’s singles title. We’ve talked about the over-indexing of Czech players, and now here comes another—a versatile, athletic slugger who looked thoroughly comfortable on grass. Yet, her most impressive display may have had nothing to do with tennis. Nosková was playing in her first major final, up 6–2, 5–2, with five match points, but squandered them. She then returned to run it out 6–2, 5–7, 6–3. What a statement about her resilience.

3. Karolína Muchová played six rounds of brilliant, easy-on-the-eyes grass-court tennis. That included a 7–6 third-set semifinal thriller against Coco Gauff. (This from a player who has sometimes struggled closing.) Muchová came up short in the final and was reduced to tears processing the missed opportunity, but what a player. Given her health, her relatively middle age (29) and all-surface versatility, you have to think she’ll come good eventually.

4. Alexander Zverev came within two sets of pulling off the “Eurostar double,” winning both Roland Garros and Wimbledon. He came up short in the final against Sinner, his red kryptonite, but solved the riddle of grass, moved up to No. 2 in the rankings, and showed real resilience in nearly going back-to-back and competing gamely against an opponent who had beaten him in the previous 14 sets they had played.

5. What a strange liminal state (purgatory?) this champion warhorse, Novak Djokovic, has entered. He rocks up to majors with little prep or match play and still advances to the semifinals. Why on earth would he ever want to retire? Yet, he’s 39 years old, three years removed from his last major title and needs to play A+ tennis to beat the young stars. Are you sure you want to continue? There is, after all, no load management in tennis. As it was, Djokovic lost to Sinner in straight sets and, if we’re being honest, it may have been his last best chance to win a 25th major. Djokovic, I’m told, will be in New York the week following Wimbledon in conjunction with the Amazon documentary that drops in August. Pity this fascinating juncture of his career won’t be included.

6. The tournament began with bleating about the state of British tennis. Ten days later, it looked considerably different, due (solely?) to Arthur Fery, who won five setters, beat a top 10 seed, hilariously clotted his ears and reached the semifinals. He’s now shot up to No. 36 in the ATP rankings, and we will see whether this was a magical tournament, a genuine breakthrough, or something in between.

7. There is so much to admire about Coco Gauff, and much of it has nothing to do with tennis. Playing her fifth consecutive three-set match (more than half of her matches this year have gone the distance), she had a match point, and then dumped a shot that will haunt her for months. Gauff is wise and levelheaded and has overcome technical defects to compete for majors, but this one will sting.

8. Marta Kostyuk has lost two of her past 20 matches. Alas, one was in the Roland Garros semifinal, and the other was in the Wimbledon semifinal, in a not-vacant-but-disappointingly-flat effort against Linda Nosková.

9. Henry Patten and Harri Heliövaara won the men’s doubles title, beating Marcelo Arévalo and Mate Pavić in the final. In the past five sets they played at this event, they won: 7–6, 7–6, 7–6, 7–6, 7–6. In the women’s doubles event, France's Kristina Mladenovic (a former top 10 singles player) and China's Guo Hanyu won the title on Sunday with a final victory over No. 2 seeds Gabriela Dabrowski and Luisa Stefani.

10. The inimitable Jeļena Ostapenko won another major. In the mixed doubles event, she teamed with El Salvador’s Marcelo Arévalo to take the title, winning Thursday’s final over Marc Polmans and Storm Hunter.

11. Jordan Lee, a 16-year-old (qualifier) from Orlando, won a sensational boys’ singles final, beating Cruz (son of Lleyton) Hewitt in the final. You waver between exuberance for a bright prospect and overburdening a 16-year-old with the anvil of expectation, but wow, is this kid a player.

12. Anna Pushkareva lifted the Wimbledon girls’ singles trophy after beating China’s Sun Xinran in the longest junior girls’ final in tournament history. Sun lost in the Roland Garros final as well, but she is only 15. In the doubles, the Czech duo of Jana Kovačková and Kateřina Zajíčková beat the Brazilian team of Victoria Luiza Barros and Nauhany Vitória Leme da Silva, 7–6, 6–7, 10–6. (Finally, the Czech Republic is experiencing some women’s tennis success.)

13. The Tennis Channel studio is above Court 14, which, happily, is the site of many wheelchair matches. Again, not as an act of altruism, but rather as a gripping sports spectacle, the wheelchair event is well worth your time and attention. You can find all of the results here.

14. Wimbledon is not perfect (see the sustainability nonsense below, and we quibble with the late Centre Court start time, etc.). But it’s close. This event does such a graceful job of braiding tradition and history with technology and innovation. It’s elegant, but doesn’t take itself too seriously. (I wish I were able to find it, but in the lead-up to the tournament, players got an email basically saying, Yes, we Brits probably talk about the weather too much, but, really, it’s hot out there and you should take precautions.) It mints money while avoiding the carnival of commerce that is the U.S. Open. You can spend $10,000 for Centre Court tickets. You can also join the queue and, if your number comes up, sit on Centre Court for $50, and buy strawberries and cream for less than $3. There are so many details—the flowers, accessibility and accountability of the executives; the attention paid to disabled fans and players—that go unremarked upon. This is a model for how a modern-day sporting property ought to go about its business, a mix of capitalism and humanity.

15. We talk about claws, jaws, talons and fangs. It’s all unmeasurable, situational and reductive. But, without naming names, there are players you’d love to have as neighbors and love less to have as neighbors in your foxhole.

16. Roger Federer was at Wimbledon, in part in advance of his Hall of Fame induction. There are high expectations for his speech, which he will no doubt meet. (A few of you asked about Serena Williams. Despite her comeback, the Hall of Fame eligibility clock did not reset. It’s still likely that, five years after her last full season, she’ll be inducted in 2027.)

17. Speaking of Federer, I had the good fortune of spending some time with him the other day. He explained the circumstances of the viral photo of him sitting alone, watching the Zverev–Jiří Lehečka match. Aware that the Royal Box often retreats indoors for some rest and relaxation between matches—and players walk out to a thinly-peopled Centre Court, sometimes deflating their spirits—Federer sat to watch the beginning of the Zverev and Lehečka fourth-rounder. The problem? The ushers didn’t allow fans back in their Royal Box seats until the first full changeover. This left Federer essentially alone on an island of tennis fandom amid an ocean of chairs. The club at one point sent a member to accompany Federer, mostly for the optics. Federer was appreciative but also totally cool watching alone. Eventually, the other fans arrived. But this was a priceless image:

Image of the day.

Roger Federer sitting by himself in the Royal Box at Wimbledon.

He’s truly there just to watch some tennis.

One of the most legendary athletes is also a true tennis fan at the root of it all. ❤️ pic.twitter.com/VJMrOyUTJ1
— The Tennis Letter (@TheTennisLetter) July 6, 2026

18. Jessica Pegula spent the middle Saturday in a conference room, taking part in the discussions between the majors and the top players seeking more prize money. In the middle of a major that some thought she might win for the first time, she made time for this. If other players had a fraction of her professionalism, leadership, curiosity and time management, this sport would be in a much better place. As for her tennis, she turned in a strong Week 1, then, the 32-year-old, and as the highest seed left in the women’s quarters, capitulated in three sets to Coco Gauff, her past (and sometimes present) doubles partner.

19. What to make of Naomi Osaka? After reaching the second week of Roland Garros for the first time, she reached the second round of Wimbledon for the first time, taking out top-seeded Aryna Sabalenka in the process. Then she came up short against Karolína Muchová. Does she have another major in her? Perhaps. But is she in a much better place than she was at this time last year? Unquestionably.

20. A happy challenge for the WTA and tennis as a whole: how to capitalize on the mania around Alexandra Eala. Here is a boundlessly charming and accessible 21-year-old, from a sports-starved country of 110 million people, who has already beaten 10 top-20 opponents. (At Wimbledon, her signature win was a takedown of defending champ Iga Świątek.) Other sports would do Kostyuk-like backflips for this scenario. Let’s see how tennis manages this gift. (It can start by credentialing Filipino media.)

21. The periodic reminder that tennis chooses to hold its tentpole event on the rarest of surfaces. Grass requires immense, intensive care and demands that matches not start until 1:30 p.m. local time. The surface gets chewed up halfway through the event, resulting in an abundance of bad bounces. Yet, Wimbledon remains so special, so cherished and, more critically, so relevant. In the words of Alex de Minaur (see more below), “It’s a funny old game, this one.”

22. As is always the case, for all the triumphs, so many players leave Wimbledon with questions in need of response. For the second time in five weeks, Frances Tiafoe left a major having lost a winnable match in which he let a lead slip away. Iga Świątek is likely to have a double-digit seeding at the U.S. Open, reduced to tears during her defeat by Alexandra Eala. Elena Rybakina has regressed immensely since her Australian Open title (she fell in the third round at Wimbledon to Elise Mertens). Ben Shelton is 2–6 at the past half dozen majors and ATP 1000 events. Each will look to course-correct on the North American cement.

23. There should be a little grace for the burden that comes with winning the previous major and for being 19, but Mirra Andreeva sure didn’t do much to build on her Roland Garros breakthrough. Losing to Barbora Krejčíková is no great shame. The racket chuck, the threats to quit, and tears don’t become a major champion.

24. A big story at this event: the precarious state of men’s doubles, and the ATP’s plan to chop draws by half. From the two-things-can-be-true-at-once file: We can feel sorry for doubles players on an emotional level, lament the fading status and stature of this specialty, and bristle at any job cuts. We can wonder what majors and the Masters 1000s will look like in the absence of so many doubles sessions. And yet, we can also recognize the grim math: the decades-long persistence of this issue and the difficulty of making a business case for a specialty that exhausts 20% of the prize money (and more in resources, real estate, hotel rooms, etc.) but doesn’t provide 20% of the revenue. As book authors will tell you, lack of promotion is not a sympathetic defense.

More than anything, this shows a lack of imagination. The ATP should be embarrassed that it can’t make this work. At the same time, the doubles players must recognize the realities and market themselves (as authors must!) when the institution falls short.

Surely there is a creative solution/strategy here. Former Australian player John Millman has thoughts. Consider reducing prize money for doubles players and giving them a budget/rights to market themselves or start a YouTube Channel. Maybe there is a two-way model where prize money is reduced, but there is a way to make themselves whole through a sales model. Maybe singles players who enter doubles get more money than their specialist partners. Maybe doubles players must commit to extra sponsor pro-ams and kids clinics. Maybe the ATP pays zero prize but gives doubles players media rights they can sell. Something. Simply, slashing draws and, therefore, jobs, smacks of laziness.

At Wimbledon, we spoke with Henry Patten and Harri Heliövaara, who shared their thoughts and made a strong defense of doubles. We also spoke with Thanasi Kokkinakis—a singles player who once beat Federer and, here, played doubles on a lark, reaching the semis—who basically said, What a sweet existence these doubles players have. You cover half the court. You don’t have to train for best-of-five singles matches. Without much scouting or stress, I made six figures. No wonder guys play until they are in their 40s.

25. In one of the stranger sequences, days before the tournament, the top players decided that despite a 20% year-over-year increase in prize money, they would still stage a media protest. Then, on Sunday night before the tournament, a statement came saying the protest was off. What happened in the interim? Multiple sources tell me that while the All England Club publicly claimed to be “surprised and disappointed” by the protest, they were, in a word, p-----, and sought retaliation. One weapon at their disposal: free tickets. Like all majors, Wimbledon gives players—and, more critically, agents—millions of dollars in tickets and passes. That got everyone’s attention. A few frantic phone calls, and the protest was squelched. And the other majors just learned about a pain point, as it were, of these ongoing negotiations.

26. Speaking of negotiations, the U.S. Open is next. (Again, shoutout to Jessica Pegula for attending the meeting in the middle weekend of a major that she was trying to win.) I’m told the U.S. Open is open to a large increase in prize money. It’s open to some sort of player commission and even pension contributions. However, no way in hell is it going into some sort of profit/revenue share, retooling its fundamental business while knowing that the players, angry as they might be, won’t strike.

João Fonseca fell to Roman Safiullin in the third round at Wimbledon. | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

27. What do Rafael Jódar and João Fonseca have in common? A lot, including the fact that they were nearly teammates at the University of Virginia in what would have been an all-time college recruiting class. They are the same age (19), are close in rankings, and have big upside, but lost to qualifiers at Wimbledon. Also, this: They have both eschewed formal management agency relationships in favor of a DIY approach.

While we’re here, a few hours after Fonseca lost (comprehensively) to Roman Safiullin, I happened to see him at a casual dinner. He was in a small group that included his father, outfitted in a MoMA T-shirt. (That’s the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.) Other much-hyped 19-year-olds who would get eliminated from Wimbledon and then, as the Brits say, let off steam at the pub. This kid goes out to a subdued dinner with his family wearing art museum merch. A little portal that presages success.

28. You appreciate the withering candor, but wow, did Alex de Minaur—now, ironically, a top five player for the first time in his career—beat himself up after a loss to Flavio Cobolli. “I’m broken inside. That’s the reality,” he said. “You invest so many hours into this job and so many years to have moments like these. Not being able to live up to it is truly heartbreaking. I won’t be playing a tournament for a while. But again, they keep piling up. The goals, the belief, the dreams you have start fading away or feeling a little bit further out of reach than they once were. I feel like a couple of years ago I was definitely closer. Now I just feel like I’m drifting a little further away from those dreams. It’s getting harder and harder. That’s the reality.” Oof.

29. Five players didn’t get out of Week 1 but impressed nonetheless—the versatile Janice Tjen of Indonesia via Pepperdine. Claire Liu, an American former girls’ champion, qualified and won two rounds. Michael Zheng, an American NCAA champion, qualified and won two rounds. Otto Virtanen, the Ben Shelton slayer, is way better than his sub-100 ranking coming in. Robin Montgomery, the American lefty, should have beaten Jasmine Paolini and is a top-50 player right now, regardless of what the rankings say.

30. We all talk a lot—as well we should—about the success of Czech women. And keep an eye on Brazil, whose players are all over the junior draws. But Italian tennis remains the benchmark for over-indexing. Here’s a country with no major, a fairly modest tennis history, and modest national wealth that has turned into a tennis factory. Other federations need to study this model. Instead of sowing profits from a major, it’s built on a bottom-up approach. A lot of infrastructure, tournaments (so players can amass points at minimal travel expense), dues-paying recreational players, and more than 4,000 tennis clubs—not fancy country clubs but community facilities. The stars and the bevy of top players? That’s a consequence, not necessarily the ultimate aim.

31. Taylor Fritz has aged into a tennis truth-teller, and he nailed the rules of engagement regarding the look-at-me outfits. “You show up in a whole get-up and get knocked out in the first round, it would be ridiculous,” he said.

Fritz took the court in a Hugo Boss Gatsby get-up, looking like a kid wearing a ridiculous outfit that his parents thought was adorable and transgressive at a wedding. Naomi Osaka takes her attire more seriously. If the specter of embarrassment is motivation to play well from the jump, maybe these outfits are worth it. To each their own.

32. Two things can be true at once. Serena can and should be lauded for her comeback, her professional approach to it, her level of improvement since 2022, and her hunger for success. We also can, and should, lament the way it played out. It’s a pity she got hurt, obviating doubles with Venus. It’s also a pity she wasn’t more gracious toward Maya Joint, a giddy 20-year-old who had just won the biggest match of her life, under difficult circumstances. It’s a pity Serena declined to fulfill her media commitment. One of the reasons she got a wild card was for the publicity and attention that attended the tournament.

Speaking of Serena, the knee injury that kept her out of doubles here appears to be healing. My sources tell me that, unlike Venus, she won’t play in Washington, D.C. Look for Serena to play doubles in Toronto with a younger partner—and possibly singles. Cincinnati is TBD depending on how she feels. And the U.S. Open is fully preparing for Venus and Serena to play, starting mixed doubles week.

Serena Williams is expected to return to the court for the U.S. Open. | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

33. Keep an eye on the U.S. Open mixed doubles competition. Serena wants in, but I’m told she is waiting for Carlos Alcaraz to get cleared. Novak Djokovic wants in, but I’m told he is waiting to see if Aryna Sabalenka wants to play or protest. Here’s an idea: A mixed team of Serena and Djokovic—combined age of 83; combined majors count of 47—joining forces.

34. World Cup fever did not infect the grounds. The All England Club was adamant that only tennis aired on the big screen. I’m told the football/soccer was aired on the locker room monitors, and the club was helpless to police fans watching on their phones. When England played, there were roars after goals, sometimes confusing players who did nothing remarkable on the court and suddenly heard raucous cheers from the stands.

35. The Czech success did not, of course, include 2023 champion Markéta Vondroušová, whose doping case and four-year suspension were a hot topic of conversation. Note that she has hired California-based lawyer Howard Jacobs (whose client list is like movie credits: Maria Sharapova, Simona Halep, Diana Taurasi) to represent her during the inevitable appeal. Again: Should she receive a penalty for forgoing a test as if she’d actually tested positive? Sure. But find us a player who was popped for doping and served a four-year ban. You can’t have a player declining tests. You also can’t have players better off testing positive than declining to test.

36. From the boulevard of broken dreams that was the qualifying draw: While the other majors are leaning into three weeks of action and promoting the opportunity of qualifying, Wimbledon did very little here. Scores were barely navigable on the website. When the “golf course expansion” is complete and Wimbledon holds qualifying on-site, not at Roehampton (and becomes a three-week, billion-pound extravaganza), look for more here. Inexplicably denied a wild card, Dan Evans did not qualify. Bianca Andreescu, a star-crossed former major champion, qualified. So did Columbia grad Michael Zheng for the third consecutive major. This was an unusually strong event for qualifiers, with both Shintaro Mochizuki (a joy to watch) and Roman Safiullin reaching the fourth round, and Zheng winning a pair of matches. Ashlyn Krueger is also to be commended for qualifying and winning three rounds on the women’s side.

37. What do (deep breath) Carlos Alcaraz, Jack Draper, Lorenzo Musetti, Holger Rune, Victoria Mboko, Emma Raducanu, Hailey Baptiste and Sebastian Korda have in common? All were out of Wimbledon with various injuries. The same is true for so many lesser-known talented players (see: Robin Montgomery a year ago) whose careers are being delayed. I hate banging this drum after every major, but, really, are we O.K. with this level of player injury? If not, doesn’t someone—the tours? a bipartisan commission? a player group?—need to take the lead and use data to make recommendations to improve the health and wellness of the workers? Speaking of collaborating to confront existential threats …

38. We like sports in part because they can offer reprieve from the real world, but it’s impossible to divorce the two, and naive to try. Which brings us to climate change and its impact on tennis, a sport played globally, often indoors and in warm climates (and with an insistence on best-of-five matches for men at majors). The main draw was spared the inferno, but the June heat wave during qualifying wrecked the electrical grid, which obviated Hawk-Eye and necessitated humans briefly returning to call lines. (Then again, humans standing for hours in triple-digit heat isn’t ideal either.) Wimbledon claims that, going forward, it is “rethinking a summer garden, for times when water is harder to come by.” Every venue expansion should include more shade for fans. Events have heat policies and indexes, but, increasingly, this will be a tennis challenge.

39. That said, indulge this annual gripe. Perhaps you recall the story from a few years back when Serena Williams asked Wimbledon for five cars to transport her and her team. Those vehicles joined a convoy of Land Rovers orbiting the village here, driving players a few tenths of a mile. Lord knows how many Royal Box guests flew in privately, or how much water Wimbledon’s expansion will require. Meanwhile, under the omnibus banner of sustainability, we commoners were subject to the crime against humanity that is the paper straw, asked not to print research packets,and deprived of paper towels in bathrooms. Look, we all want a cleaner, greener planet. We all want sustainability. But some consistency/equality on these matters would enhance credibility.

40. Another Davis Cup proposal from the beleaguered World Tennis, formerly known as the ITF: There’s a model in circulation for a renewal of the home-and-away format, but spread over two years. (And, after a sojourn to China, could it be that the Billie Jean King Cup is coming to my home state of Indiana?) At what point do we consider saying, The market has spoken. In 2026, there is neither the commercial appetite nor the spot in the scheduling for a credible team competition. Players live everywhere. Fans root for their favorites, but seldom because of their national flags. This competition had a great run, as did its female counterpart. Now we cut bait and reinvest in something totally different that will grow the sport.

41. Man, did Dan Evans get sideways with the All England Club. We’ve written and spoken about the pettiness of his being denied a wild card. (He ranks among the five best British players of the past quarter century, who sacrificed to represent Team GB in Davis Cups and Olympics. He wrung an awful lot from his talent, and as the son of an electrician, he exploded the myth that tennis is only for the elite. And you’re denying him a chance to play his last main draw match at Wimbledon?) Evans, we gather, is coaching British player Henry Searle, so the All England Club ain’t done with him yet.

42. It was at Wimbledon three years ago that we reported about the perils of the WTA’s “strategic partnership” with private equity. (This is like the cow having a “strategic partnership” with the slaughterhouse.) The bills are coming due, and the WTA’s precarious finances are becoming all the more precarious by the pressure CVC is exerting. For all the upsets and unforeseen results in tennis, this is not one of them.

43. Nick Kyrgios was a Wimbledon singles finalist four years ago. This year, at 31, he received a doubles wild card and, paired with Alexander Bublik, lost in the first round, then made overtures that it was his last match. Largely self-sabotaged, but what a wild career, a diorama of “what if.” Sell the documentary rights now.

44. Is anyone NOT playing with a blue Yonex Ezone? It’s hard to recall a more popular racket among the players.

45. Chris Evert is an American treasure. Keep her in your thoughts. A Middle Sunday thought exercise that rocketed around the broadcast compound. In Chrissy’s absence—and with ESPN therefore lacking a female analyst who’d ever made a Wimbledon final—would ESPN have been willing to pay Serena (or Venus) to stick around for Week 2 and call a few late matches and the final, as Andre Agassi (typically exquisite) did for the BBC?

46. No objectivity here, but when he wasn’t popping buttons on his slacks, Andy Roddick sure got rave reviews for his ESPN debut. Meanwhile, a tip of the cap to Andrew Castle, John Lloyd and Jo Durie, who worked their last event at Wimbledon for the BBC.

47. Some big news dropped during Week 1: The WTA Finals is headed to Indian Wells. I am told that it’s just for a year and that Charlotte figures prominently, not just as the next finals site (what would be its ninth in 10 years) but in “the big picture future” of the WTA.

48. Happy addition to tennis, Rourke O’Shannessy, Craig’s son, who is making his dad proud with his embrace of tennis data. Among the gold nuggets he unearthed: Men hold serve 79% of the time, but watch the first point. When they win the first point of a service game, they win 87% of the games. When they lose the first serving point, they win just 65% of the games.

49. Thanks for all your mail and feedback about the Served podcast and Tennis Channel. We’ll have some Served news soon about public events at the U.S. Open. One favorite Tennis Channel moment: Coco Gauff coming to the studios and being asked about her secret talent. She revealed that she can walk on her hands. And then she did this.

50. Wimbledon commenced in 1877, with a small field of players asked to pay roughly the equivalent of $1,500 to compete. Why do I bring this up? Next year will mark the 150th anniversary, with festivities—including an Andy Murray statue—to follow.

THANKS FOR PLAYING, EVERYONE. WE’LL DO IT ALL AGAIN IN NEW YORK!

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