As Wimbledon nears, stars look for glory on a grass court

LONDON — Wimbledon, which begins Monday at the All England Club, promises to be excellent. Here are some of the key storylines to follow over the next two weeks.

Will Iga Swiatek win her first Wimbledon title?

There is no question about who the best female tennis player in the world is. It is Iga Swiatek of Poland, a five-time Grand Slam event champion who has dominated the rankings for more than two years and finished the 2022 and 2023 seasons as world No. 1.

And yet, Swiatek is a major question mark when it comes to winning Wimbledon, the sport’s most desired title. She has never gotten past the quarterfinals in women’s singles at Wimbledon, and her game is not a natural fit on the grass.

Blame her Western grip on her forehand, which puts her racket at a funky angle that does not work so well on balls she has to strike between her ankle and her thigh. That happens a lot on grass.

Blame her love of clay, where she slides all about and then dances back to the center of the court.

Blame her less-than-overpowering serve, which does not provide many easy points on a surface where they are more important than anywhere else, especially against a fast server who is collecting plenty of them at the other end. She has added 10 mph to last year’s speeds on her serve, making one of the most important grass-court weapons a bigger factor in her arsenal.

Or blame Swiatek’s success. She wins so many clay-court tournaments, including the past three French Opens, that she can be exhausted by mid-June. The last thing she wants to do is practice and compete on the surface she is the least comfortable with when she could be resting.

Swiatek will enter Wimbledon once again without playing a grass-court tuneup, opting instead to rest and then train on some grass courts near her home in Warsaw, Poland, before traveling to London. Can anyone master grass this way? Swiatek, a stellar athlete and sublime mover, would figure to have a better chance than anyone. If it does not happen for her this year, though, she has a big consolation. Right after Wimbledon, she gets to go back to the red clay of Roland Garros to try to win a gold medal at the Paris Olympics.

Does Eastbourne success harbinger fortune for the British women?

If there is a passing of the torch happening on the British men’s side — from Andy Murray, 37, a two-time Wimbledon champion, to Jack Draper, 22, the new British No. 1 — the women are in more secure form entering Wimbledon. Emma Raducanu, Katie Boulter and Harriet Dart made the quarterfinals of the Eastbourne International event this past week, marking the first time Britain has had three women there in 46 years.

Of those three, it is Boulter, who successfully defended her WTA 250 title in Nottingham two weeks ago, who looks to be in the best shape. Raducanu, fresh from beating Sloane Stephens and then claiming a first Top 10 win against the world No. 5, American Jessica Pegula, might dispute that. But her many recent fitness issues mean her supporters do not want to get too carried away just yet, and Boulter also beat Raducanu in a tight semifinal in Nottingham on June 16.

Raducanu is still feeling very positive about her form and fitness. She bounded into the interview room with the assembled news media at Eastbourne early this past week and said that she had rediscovered her love for the game. After beating Stephens, she wrote, “At my own pace,” on the camera, perhaps a reference to people who criticized her decision to skip the French Open and turn down the chance to represent Britain at the Paris Olympics. At the moment, those are looking like smart moves, as she returns to Wimbledon three years on from her run to the fourth round that catapulted her into the nation’s consciousness.

Hannah Klugman, a British 15-year-old, missed out on reaching the main Wimbledon draw when she lost her final qualifying match 6-3, 6-3 to an American, Alycia Parks, on Thursday. Klugman won the prestigious Orange Bowl title in Florida in December.

Can an American get to the Wimbledon final?

If you want to believe this is the year that an American gets back into a final at Wimbledon — for the first time since sisters Serena and Venus Williams stopped getting there all the time — go ahead. It is a long shot, especially on the men’s side, but somewhat less long than it used to be.

Coco Gauff has made the semifinals of the past two Grand Slam events. In each case, she lost to the eventual champion: Aryna Sabalenka in Australia and Swiatek in France. Her forehand remains occasionally unstable, and the quick grass can accentuate that wobbliness. But Gauff’s game is getting more versatile each month, filled with slices and drop shots, and she is extra tough when her serve is on. As the No. 2 seed, she is guaranteed to avoid her main nemesis, Swiatek, until the final. She will open against American Caroline Dolehide in the first round.

Pegula has also returned from her neck injury layoff in style. She won the Ecotrans Open grass-court title in Berlin. At Wimbledon last year, she was tantalizingly close to making her first Grand Slam semifinal before coughing up a third-set lead to the eventual champion, Marketa Vondrousova.

Those are probably the two best shots, but do not count out Danielle Collins, who has cooled off from her hot spring but remains a dangerous No. 11 seed.

On the men’s side, Tommy Paul raised hopes last Sunday when he won at Queen’s Club. Paul, who rose to No. 12 in the rankings with the win, did not have to beat a Top 10 player on the way to the title, but he did beat fellow American Sebastian Korda in the semifinals. When healthy and in full flight, Korda is considered one of the best grass-court players in the world — so much so that last year he fell into the trap of believing his own hype. After saying that he felt like a favorite, he promptly lost in the first round.

Elsewhere, Taylor Fritz loves the grass and has the booming, sliding serve to win on it, and one of these days, Ben Shelton, who has the boomiest of booming serves, is going to figure the lawns out, too. This year is probably too soon for the Floridian, though.