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The Championships at Wimbledon don’t start until next week, but action for the year’s third Grand Slam kicks off today with qualifying in Roehampton. 128 women will compete across three brutal rounds for just 16 spots in the main draw at the All England Club. There’s no margin for error, no second chances and a genuine pressure against opponents who have everything to gain and nothing to lose. That’s what makes qualifying so juicy.
With temperatures forecast to reach a June record of 37°C (98.6°F) in London, players will be tested to their absolute limits before they even see a ball struck at SW19. The heat alone will be a major factor. Three rounds on outdoor grass courts in those conditions will create both a physical and mental war. We saw how Roland Garros unfolded with an early heat wave, so could Wimbledon be next with some all-time surprises?
The stakes this year are particularly high. The 2026 edition marks the first time Wimbledon will use video reviews/ELC and prize money has increased to £64.2 million — the largest year-on-year increase in the tournament’s history. First-round losers in the main draw are taking home £80,000, so players getting through qualifying could pay for their teams and travel for the next year. There’s so many intangibles that make the stakes in qualifying incredibly high.
The field at Roehampton this year reflects exactly where women’s tennis is right now: deep, unpredictable, and loaded with players who have underperformed their ceiling for one reason or another. The depth of women’s tennis means that many players fully capable of competing in the main draw must first survive the qualifying competition. It’s not hyperbole, with the direct acceptance cutoff this year ending at World No. 101.
These players aren’t scrubs. They’re players navigating rankings dips due to injury, illness, or circumstance or those simply on the rise. On grass, with its unique pace, low bounce, and premium on serve-and-volley instincts, the surface can neutralize the gap between a No. 50 and No. 115 in ways clay and hard courts simply don’t. It’s worth remembering that in 2021, Emma Raducanu qualified for the US Open and then went on to win the entire tournament. And just recently, Maja Chwalinska qualified for the French Open and made it all the way to the final.
Qualifiers arrive with zero pressure, enormous hunger and the sheer advantage of match rhythm from surviving Roehampton while seeded opponents might be rusty from a lighter pre-Wimbledon schedule. Like I enjoy doing with every Grand Slam qualifying, here are three players that could follow Raducanu or Chwalinska’s footsteps and make some noise in the main draw.
Lulu Sun (NZL) — No. 109
Sun qualified for the 2024 Wimbledon Championships, upset eighth seed Zheng Qinwen in the first round, and ultimately reached the quarterfinals — the first New Zealand woman to ever reach that stage at Wimbledon in the Open Era. She did all of that as a qualifier coming through Roehampton. She knows this process. She’s done it before on this surface against top-10 opposition, and there’s no reason to think she can’t do it again.
At 110 in the world, Sun’s ranking doesn’t reflect what she’s capable of on grass specifically. Her lefty game is built for it — composed under pressure, with a reliable serve that holds up in tight spots and a baseline game that stays clean even when conditions get tricky. The knock on Sun is that she’s been inconsistent since that 2024 run on top of injury struggles. There’s many players who find form at the home of their breakthrough and I personally feel Wimbledon unlocks that more than others. Could the magic of SW19 (and playing through qualifying) guide the former Texas Longhorn back to Centre Court?
Bianca Andreescu (CAN) — No. 178
Andreescu was once No. 4 in the world following her US Open title in 2019, but she has been unable to stay healthy for any prolonged stretch during her career. She currently registers at No. 178. The ranking is almost irrelevant as a measure of her ability. When Andreescu is fit and locked in, she is a different caliber of player than nearly anyone in this qualifying draw. Her game — the power, the variety, the mental composure in clutch moments — was built for big stages.
The obvious concern is fitness. That’s always been the concern with Andreescu. But she’s entered qualifying, and the fact that she’s here competing means she believes she’s ready to play. The counter-argument is that she only played one grass court tournament between Roland Garros qualifying and now, in a rout to Elise Mertens as a wildcard in ‘s-Hertogenbosch. If she stays healthy through three qualifying matches, she walks into the main draw with more Slam experience than most of the seeded players she’d face in the first round. A lot of the time, especially in women’s tennis, that experience is what guides many to victory.
Ashlyn Krueger (USA) — No. 120
A year ago, Krueger was ranked No. 29 in the world. She reached a WTA 500 final in Abu Dhabi and was firmly in the conversation as one of the next American women to watch after beating Elena Rybakina in Miami. Then 2026 happened — injuries, ranking slide, a drop back outside the top 100 — and now she’s at Roehampton trying to earn her way back into a Grand Slam main draw.
What makes her a real threat on this surface specifically is the combination of her size and her serve. At 6’1″, she generates significant free points on grass, where even a competent return is difficult against a tall server with an upward delivery angle. She’s averaging over four aces per match recently, and that number goes up on fast courts. She also already demonstrated that she can navigate Wimbledon qualifying conditions this grass season, coming through Birmingham’s WTA 125 qualifying en route to the semifinals and then followed that up by taking the WTA 125 in Ilkey. She just missed out on main draw acceptance and would have been next in had there been one more withdrawal. Add that alongside of perhaps being among the “should possibly receive a main draw wildcard” based on her grass results, she could be mighty hungry to prove a point.
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This Week in Women’s Tennis
In unfortunate news, 2023 Wimbledon champion Marketa Vondrousova was banned for four years for refusing a doping test in December. The former World No. 4 first argued that the test wasn’t in her designated daily hour window and then her anxiety/mental health disorder helped cloud her judgment.
The ITIA shared that there was “no compelling justification” for Vondrousova’s reasoning and they have to treat a test refusal the same as a positive test. As a result, she’s currently banned through June 21, 2030.
The Czech did release a statement and hasn’t announced whether or not she will appeal through the Court of Arbitration for Sport:
Serena Williams was awarded the final main draw singles wildcard at Wimbledon. She will be playing singles (and doubles with Venus!) for the first time since the 2022 U.S. Open, leading to even more questions on what the endgame here for this comeback is.
Linda Noskova captured the VANDA Pharmaceuticals Berlin Tennis Open over Jessica Pegula for the biggest title of her career and as a result, a Top 10 breakthrough. She then teamed up with Ekaterina Alexandrova to win the doubles title over Nicole Melichar-Martinez and Sara Errani.
Marie Bouzkova won the Nottingham Open title with a win over Emma Navarro in the final. The doubles title was won by the all-Brit pair of Harriet Dart and Maia Lumsden, who bested Chan Hao-ching and Shuko Aoyama.
Reese Brantemeir (UNC) and DJ Bennett/Ava Esposito (Auburn) took home the American Collegiate Player Wildcard Playoffs at the USTA National Campus last week, earning main draw wildcards into the U.S. Open. Katrina Scott (Tennessee) was the singles runner-up, will be awarded a qualifying wildcard.
Ever curious on what tennis agents look for in the next tennis superstar? Look no further.
Again, the more Serena Williams enters her comeback, the more discourse around GLP-1s and sport arises.
Jelena Ostapenko has released her own merch line alongside this animated announcement:
While tennis seems to be getting hotter and hotter, Adidas is finding new technologies to keep their players cool as possible.
The Intennse pro tennis league has rebranded and launched their second season, hoping to be a game-changer in the sport that has favored tradition over entertainment.
With NIL deals and pay-to-play sweeping college football and basketball programs, tennis teams are heavily on the chopping block. A potential bill to cap those deals could save them.
Speaking of college tennis, the ITA unveiled their national award winners and players of the year.
Tweet of the Week
The best part about Serena Williams coming back is that the next generation who never thought they’d have a chance to meet or play her is getting that opportunity:
Five at The IX: Berlin/Nottingham
Linda Noskova: “Before coming to a tournament, you never really know what you can count on or how the tournament is going to go, especially when it’s the very first one on grass this season. So I’m really happy to get off to a brilliant start. I was feeling my game for the whole week, so I couldn’t be happier.”
Marie Bouzkova: “I just tried to stay aggressive as much as possible and be the first one to dictate the point, but obviously I’m not playing so well so it wasn’t easy at all, I just tried to stay there and stay really tough at the beginning of the third set.”
Jessica Pegula: “I’m a pretty composed person. I like to take things in and I’m very aware of what’s going on. So I don’t get super emotional, and I think that’s how I try to play. I just try to play true to myself. A lot of people used to tell me when I was younger that I needed to yell more and be jumping up and down. And honestly, it just feels like a waste of energy to me. So I try to just be myself out there and that’s all that matters.”
Serena Williams: “My daughter, Olympia, told me I should play with Venus … She’s always right, so I was like, ‘OK.'”
Hannah Klugman: “These last couple of months, I’ve decided to be more aggressive … When you play these women, you have to be aggressive. You’ve got to go for it. But it’s kind of finding that middle.”
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