Who will emerge out of Wimbledon qualifying?
By Joey Dillon
The IX: Tennis Tuesday with Joey Dillon, June 24, 2025
Howdy, y’all and Happy Tennis Tuesday! Because the tennis calendar moves at a pace no person can recreate, we’re already nearing the end AND we’re entering another Grand Slam. While Brooklyn is preparing to stream the year’s third major of the year, today marked the start of the qualifying tournament.
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As with every Slam and the qualifying draw, there are three people I want to highlight as potential names to keep an eye out on. If you recall last year, Lulu Sun entered the All England Club ranked No. 123 and was able to nearly halve her ranking thanks to a quarterfinal run that included wins over Zheng Qinwen and Emma Raducanu. A year later, the former Texas star is inside the Top 50 aiming to make another run to the second week. Of the 128 players competing in Roehampton, only 16 will move advance to play on the sacred lawns of The Championships.
Now, which three players do I think you need to pencil in to watch?
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Iva Jovic
If there is a young American player that bypasses at least one year of college tennis, I usually wince in fear. However, Iva Jovic is a player that has proven me wrong so far. The 17-year-old from California has not only earned the opportunities given to her thus far, she’s taken advantage of them. She burst onto the national scene by capturing both the girls’ singles and doubles titles at the 2024 USTA Billie Jean King Girls’ Nationals, earning wildcards for the U.S. Open. There, she won her opening match over Magda Linette and lost to Ekaterina Alexandrova in a third-set tiebreak. Through her professional results, she was awarded the USTA wild card into both the Australian Open and Roland Garros and again won her opening match. What’s kind of crazy is that this will be the first time she’s participating in Grand Slam qualifying and she narrowly missed out on a wildcard following her WTA 125 title in Ilkley — a result that pushed her into the Top 100.
She has a game that can do well on grass as she takes the ball early and stays aggressive, and based on her journey thus far, enjoys the biggest stages most. As a junior, she won the 2024 Australian Open and Wimbledon junior doubles titles and fell in a third-set tiebreaker in the singles semifinals at SW19 a year ago
Emerson Jones
Another top junior that can make some noise comes from another Grand Slam nation in Australia. Emerson Jones is currently the top-ranked junior in the world and is the reigning Wimbledon Girl’s Singles finalist and also captured the 2024 ITF World Tennis Tour Junior Finals. As a professional, she’s currently ranked No. 209 and in her last tournament captured a W35 ITF World Tour title in Japan. She kicked off her season with a massive Top 40 scalp, defeating Wang Xinyu in Adelaide and was invited to train with the Australian Billie Jean King Cup team as an Orange Girl.
Like Jovic, Jones has a game that is a natural fit for grass — primarily based around her flat, aggressive groundstrokes. However, I do worry about her lack of experience professionally. While it’s impressive to be where she’s at at the age of 16, Wimbledon marks the first time she’s playing at the professional level outside of the Asia-Pacific region. She won her opening match today over No. 91 Antonia Ruzic in a topsy-turvy match that was one game shy of three bagel sets. Ruzic was the seeded favorite and Jones only has clay courters ahead of her to make the main draw so she’s one to continue being on upset alert.
Renata Jamrichova
One of the things I admire most about Wimbledon is that they always give their reigning junior champion a wildcard into the singles draw should they need it. Last year, Renata Jamrichova didn’t drop a set en route to winning the Girl’s Singles crown — her second junior major of 2024. Since that victory, she’s set her eyes only on the professional circuit and currently sits just outside of the Top 300. Like she did here, she received a qualifying wildcard into the Australian Open and won her opening match over Manon Leonard. She also represented Slovakia in the 2024 Billie Jean King Cup Finals.
A tall lefty with a big serve, you’d think she would be a natural to slay on the grass but she’s only been able to show some promise on the surface professionally. She received qualifying wildcards into s-hertogenbosch and Berlin this month and she lost in three sets to Dalma Galfi and Anastasia Potapova, respectively. At Wimbledon, she escaped Tamara Korpatsch in a first-round thriller and next faces Joanna Garland, who could have represented Great Britain but chose to fly the Taiwanese flag.
You can view the up-to-date qualifying draw here and before we head on to links, enjoy this year’s Wimbledon poster:
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This Week in Women’s Tennis
The WTA and ITF released findings last week that showed how deep the threats from gambling bettors goes to players’ inboxes where death threats are the norm. 15 cases were eventually escalated to the FBI and other national policing organizations.
In a loaded field full of most of the Top 10, Marketa Vondrousova won her first title following surgery by defeating Wang Xinyu at the Berlin Tennis Open. In doubles, Tereza Mihalikova and Olivia Nicholls won the biggest title of their career by knocking out Sara Errani and Jasmine Paolini.
At the Lexus Nottingham Open, Mccartney Kessler captured her third WTA title with a victory over Dayana Yastremska. Beatriz Haddad Maia and Laura Siegemund took home the doubles title, defeating the No. 4 seeds, Anna Danilina and Ena Shibahara.
Congratulations to former World No. 1s Ash Barty and Angelique Kerber, who announced the births of their second children.
Can the PTPA’s antitrust lawsuit really change the professional tour’s fabric for good?
Stanford’s Valerie Glozman and UNC’s Reese Brantmeier/Alanis Hamilton won the USTA U.S. Open wildcard playoff and will be main draw bound in August.
In coaching news, Pam Shriver announced her departure from Donna Vekic’s team to focus on her family, while Wang Xinyu dropped this gem in her runner-up speech in Berlin:
After a stellar and consistent year, Jasmine Paolini is the only player on either tour that is ranked in the Top 5 in both singles and doubles.
Maria Kononova is freshly married to another professional athlete and this past week actually got to compete in the same area with her golfer husband.
The U.S. Open released the initial entries for their mixed doubles exhib championship that is straying away from tradition.
I admit I’m a huge lover of the SwingVision app, which is one of many technologies looking to continue changing the tennis landscape.
Yulia Puntintseva responded to the viral clip of her handshake and reaction following her loss to Maria Sakkari in Bad Homburg yesterday.
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Tweet of the Week
Obviously the biggest tennis news of the week is Petra Kvitova announcing that she will be retiring following this year’s U.S. Open. Martina Navratilova honored her fellow Czech in light of the news.
Five at The IX: Berlin/Nottingham
“We came here to try and win the first match, and now this is happening, so I’m very grateful to be standing here.” – Marketa Vondrousova, who entered Berlin ranked No. 162 but emerged champion
“We looked at the weather yesterday, we knew it was going to be windy, so that never means pretty tennis…I knew that I just had to stay within myself, play with a lot of margin, and hope that that would be good enough.” – Nottingham champion Mccartney Kessler
“I remember a long time ago when I was just starting, I won a lot of matches being down match points, and not so long ago, I was thinking that it’s been a while since I’ve made a crazy comeback, and here I am.” – Aryna Sabalenka, who survived 2-6 down in the final set tiebreak against Elena Rybakina
“After I won the first set, I told myself, ‘OK, let’s take a minute and enjoy this. I’m playing the French Open champion and I won the first set…No matter how the second and third go, I was like, ‘Let’s enjoy it for once second. I’m really happy with how I played today. I was serving good, and putting a lot of pressure on return, especially second serve return…..It was a tough match, but I’m happy I hung in there on the tough moments.” – Wang Xinyu didn’t let Coco Gauff’s Roland Garros success overwhelm her in their Berlin matchup
“I was just trying to fight till the end…I said, ‘OK, till the last ball, I will try to push and try to find my game.’” – Liudmila Samsonova after outlasting Naomi Osaka in her Berlin opener.
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| By: Annie Peterson, @AnnieMPeterson, AP Women’s Soccer |
| Tuesdays: Tennis |
| By: Joey Dillon, @JoeyDillon, Freelance Tennis Writer |
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