Reflective Rublev ready
This summer has brought the very welcome news that Andrey Rublev is much more at peace with himself on and off the tennis court. In a distressing incident during his first round defeat at last year’s Championships, he hit himself on the leg with his racket with such force that he cut himself, with blood running from his knee.
Speaking openly about his mental health, Rublev, who plays South Africa’s Lloyd Harris in the second round of the gentlemen’s singles, has been working with Marat Safin, a former world No.1, which has been among the changes that have given him a new way to approach tennis and life.
“I would like to know myself not only as a tennis player,” he said in Breaking Back, a new ATP Originals documentary that has just been released. “I still love it. I still want to achieve as best as I can, but in a healthy way, not in a struggle way.”
Rublev vs Harris is scheduled second on No.3 Court
Tough route for Raducanu
You make your own luck in tennis but a kind draw helps and Emma Raducanu doesn’t have that in this summer’s ladies’ singles.
If you beat a former champion and then the world’s best player in successive rounds, you might expect to be holding up the Venus Rosewater Dish, or at the very least to be deep into the Fortnight.
But a look at this year's draw shows that if the former US Open champion manages that, she will be in the fourth round, which would equal her best result at the All England Club.
Raducanu has a second round meeting with Marketa Vondrousova, the Ladies’ Singles Champion in 2023, with the possibility of a third round match against Aryna Sabalenka, the world No.1, who next plays Marie Bouzkova.
Raducanu vs Vondrousova is scheduled third on Centre Court
Grassroots perspective
Savour the amateur spirit – on both sides of the net – when Carlos Alcaraz plays Oliver Tarvet, a British qualifier, in the second round.
As a student at the University of San Diego, Tarvet actually is an amateur, with strict rules in place about how much profit he can take from his run at Wimbledon.
Of course, Alcaraz is extremely professional about the way he prepares, competes and recovers.
But there’s something very refreshing about the way he often smiles and looks as though he is enjoying himself.
For all the success that Alcaraz has had – he is undefeated in his last 19 matches and has ambitions this Fortnight of winning a third successive Wimbledon title – the Spaniard reminds himself that he is doing what he dreamed about as a boy, and that this is a game.
While ranked outside the world’s top 700, Tarvet is quietly confident he can beat anyone, including Alcaraz, who needed five sets and more than four-and-a-half hours to defeat Fabio Fognini on Monday.
Alcaraz vs Tarvet is scheduled second on Centre Court
Jenson next on Joao’s journey
Andre Agassi talks about Joao Fonseca’s “easy power”.
What’s easy for the Brazilian teenager can be fiendishly difficult for whoever is on the other side of the net.
Playing in the main draw of Wimbledon for the first time this summer, Fonseca defeated Britain’s Jacob Fearnley in straight sets in the opening round and now plays American Jenson Brooksby as he tries to make the last 32 for the second Grand Slam in a row.
Fonseca vs Brooksby is scheduled first on Court 12
First Slam title the key for Madison?
There’s something different about Madison Keys this summer.
The American has been playing here since 2013. It’s now 10 years since she first reached the quarter-finals at the All England Club, and she also made the last eight in 2023.
This is her 11th Wimbledon but the first in which she knows just what it takes to win a Grand Slam, after landing her first major at this year’s Australian Open.
Keys plays Serbian Olga Danilovic for a place in the last 32.
Danilovic vs Keys is scheduled first on No.2 Court