Six players from the top 10 of the world rankings have already been eliminated in Wimbledon after the second round. The death of favourites has several reasons – and opens up many possibilities for Angelique Kerber, for example.
The crashing out of defending champion Garbine Muguruza on Thursday evening will have also registered Angelique Kerber in her rented house in southwest London. After all, when asked about the memorable death of her favourites in Wimbledon, several hours after her narrow victory over US teenage Claire Liu, she openly admitted that this was “natural”. Kerber, however, does not want to be influenced by this. “I go my way and try not to look left or right,” she said, who prefers to fly under the radar.
The series of bankruptcies for top female players is slowly reaching alarming proportions. The third seeded Muguruza was already the sixth player to be eliminated from the top 10 of the world rankings after her 7-5, 2-6, 6-1 defeat against the Belgian Alison van Uytvanck after the second round.
The days before, Caroline Wozniacki (Denmark/No. 2), Elena Svitolina (Ukraine/No. 4), Sloane Stephens (USA/No. 5), Caroline Garcia (France/No. 6) and the two-time title winner Petra Kvitova (Czech Republic/No. 8) had already been hit.
The reasons for this series, which is unique in exactly 50 years of the Open era, are manifold and can also be considered individually, at least in part. Muguruza, for example, had slipped badly on the way to the net in the second set and then seemed slightly struck. Stephens and Garcia, on the other hand, did not really get along well with grass in the past and Switolina has often revealed a mental blockade at Grand Slam tournaments.
At the same time, however, London’s many surprises are another indication of how balanced the world’s top women’s tennis players are at the moment. Only the Romanian world number one and new French Open winner Simona Halep is able to consistently maintain her top level at the moment. But she also has to fight with injuries again and again. Behind it the race is as open as seldom before, there are no guarantees.
Finally, the extremely short lawn season has always had its own pitfalls ready. The top players in particular often travel to the climax of Wimbledon without long preparation on the idiosyncratic underground. Former champion Maria Sharapova, for example, also surprisingly failed in round one, explained: “The change from sand to grass is very hard. Maybe it’s how many matches you’ve had before.” She herself did not play a single official grass court event before Wimbledon.
The world ranking tenth Kerber now slips into a new role before her third round match against Naomi Osaka (Japan/No. 18) due to the many goodbyes of the other top 10 players. After Halep and Karolina Pliskova (Czech Republic/No. 7), she is now the highest listed player in the field. It doesn’t make it any easier. Because the first days have already shown enough that the role of the favourite is not necessarily an advantage.