By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Friday June 24, 2022
The women’s singles draw at Wimbledon came with much anticipation. Everybody wanted to know where seven-time champion Serena Williams would land, in addition to seeing what the path to the title would be for favorite Iga Swiatek and challenger Ons Jabeur.
Now that we’ve had the day to mull it over, here are our top five takeaways:
1. Draw gods were not unkind to Serena
It could have been far worse for legendary Serena Williams. The seven-time champion, an unseeded wild card this year at SW19 (ranked 1204 due to inactivity), could have ended up facing Iga Swiatek in the first round. Or any other seeded player.
Instead she gets France’s Harmony Tan, a gifted but inexperienced player who has never played a main draw match at Wimbledon, and who enters Wimbledon toting a 2-6 lifetime record at the majors.
That’s favorable for Williams, and so is the fact that she gets either Sara Sorribes Tormo (the lowest seed in the women’s singles draw) or Christina McHale next. Sorribes Tormo is 2-4 lifetime at Wimbledon, and McHale is 7-10, though she did take Williams to three sets in the second round in 2016 at SW19.
Williams is in a position where she can play herself into better form before she starts facing big guns like No.6-seeded Karolina Pliskova (potentially) in the third round. A deep run is a big ask for the 40-year-old, but this draw has given her a way forward.
2. Halep will be tested early
It’s the first-round match that everybody will want to see. Simona Halep, the 2019 Wimbledon champion, finally makes her return to SW19. But her first test will be as tough as they come. Halep has drawn Karolina Muchova of the Czech Republic, a woman that has reached the quarterfinals on both her previous main draw appearances at Wimbledon.
In 2019 Muchova upset Karolina Pliskova in an epic en route to the quarterfinals, and she repeated the feat last year, defeating Camila Giorgi, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova and Paula Badosa before losing to Angelique Kerber in the quarterfinals.
Halep enters in good form, but under an injury cloud. She pulled out of her semifinal at Bad Homburg with a neck injury on Friday. Was it a precautionary decision or is she not at her best?
Muchova has played only sparingly in 2022, starting the season late due to an ab injury. At Roland-Garros she reached the third round but had to pull out with an ankle injury. The Czech played one match on grass, losing to Ons Jabeur in Berlin, 6-3, 6-3.
Halep has a tough draw beyond round one as well. If the seeds hold she’d face Camila Giorgi in the third round and either Petra Kvitova or Paula Badosa in the round of 16. But the Romanian has been in good form this summer. She reached the semis at Birmingham and Bad Homburg, and has won 13 of her last 14 on grass.
3. Iga’s right where she wants to be
Iga Swiatek has limited experience on grass – and at Wimbledon – but the 21-year-old Pole, a 2018 Wimbledon girls singles champion, has tons of momentum and that all-important aura in the locker room.
Riding a 35-match winning streak, Swiatek will make her third main draw appearance at Wimbledon and look to best her round of 16 performance from 2021.
Despite her lack of experience she is the heavy favorite to win the title and Swiatek's draw is working in her favor.
Swiatek opens with Jana Fett of Croatia in the first round, then could face either Danka Kovinic or Sonay Kartal in the second round. Kovinic is a dangerous player, but apparently not at Wimbledon, where she is 0-3 lifetime. Fett is 0-1 lifetime at Wimbledon and owns just one main draw victory at a Slam.
Swiatek could face Yulia Putintseva in the third round, and Barbora Krejciova in the round of 16. Her slated quarterfinal opponent, if the seeds hold, would be Jessica Pegula or Garbine Muguruza. There are potential challenges, to be sure, but if Swiatek has made progress with her grass game during her preparation, she should be able to handle them all. That said, she’s more likely to be beaten on grass than any other surface, where a potentially hot serving day from an opponent could take the racquet out of her hand - we’ll believe it when we see it.
4. Draw winner and loser
Joining Halep in the draw loser category is Great Britain’s Emma Raducanu. She’ll face Belgium’s Alison Van Uytvanck, a former quarterfinalist who thrives on grass, in the first round. After that it could be another grass maven, France’s Caroline Garcia, who is presently into the final at Bad Homburg. If she survives those two rounds, hard-serving American Madison Keys lies in wait as a potential third-round opponent.
All that, just to make the second week? Yikes… throw in the fact that she's still trying to get over an abdominal injury and it gets harder to see her progressing very far this year at Wimbledon.
Ons Jabeur is a winner in this draw. The Tunisian is in the lower half, far away from Iga Swiatek, and is the most in-form player in her section. Potential challenges loom, such as seed-killer Kaia Kanepi in the third round and former champion Angelique Kerber in the round of 16, but the No.3 seed has a nice path cleared for a deep run in London.
5. Week one popcorn
There are several potential third-rounders that could be absolutely magnificent if they occur, such as Belinda Bencic v Beatriz Haddad Maia, and Serena Williams v Karolina Pliskova.
We also have our eyes on a first-round battle between China’s Zheng Qinwen and Sloane Stephens. Stephens upset Petra Kvitova in the first round last year, while Zheng, who reached the round of 16 on her Roland-Garros debut earlier this month, is making her Wimbledon debut.
We also think that a first-rounder between Alizé Cornet and Yulia Putintseva has the potential to be an absolute barnburner.