Just three weeks ago, Coco Gauff and Carlos Alcaraz were crowned French Open champions — and both are among the favorites again as Wimbledon begins Monday.
Alcaraz is the two-time defending champion at the All England Club — could he become the fifth man in the Open era to achieve a three-peat at Wimbledon? Or will Jannik Sinner avenge his French Open final loss to Alcaraz to win his first Grand Slam title on grass?
Gauff, meanwhile, has now won two major titles but has never made it past the fourth round at Wimbledon. And the women’s field is wide open — the past eight Wimbledon titles have been won by different women.
Could Aryna Sabalenka win her first Wimbledon title? Or will Iga Swiatek bounce back from a difficult year to claim the crown?
And what about Novak Djokovic? Could he somehow win a record-breaking 25th Grand Slam title?
Our experts weigh in on these pressing questions and more.
How will Gauff follow up her French Open title?
D’Arcy Maine: Gauff arrives at Wimbledon — where she has been as beloved as just about any player since her breakthrough at the event in 2019 — brimming with confidence and self-belief and certainly could be in a position to have her best result at the tournament.
But it’s not going to be easy. Despite her auspicious debut six years ago at the All England Club in which she reached the fourth round, she has never advanced past that point and lost in her opening-round match in her lone grass-court lead-in event in Berlin earlier this month.
And, perhaps most importantly, she is in an incredibly tough quarter of the draw and could face a number of challenging opponents, including Dayana Yastremska in the first round, potential second- and third-round meetings with former Australian Open champions Victoria Azarenka and Sofia Kenin (who upset her at Wimbledon in 2023), grass standout Liudmila Samsonova in the fourth round and either five-time major victor Iga Swiatek or 2022 Wimbledon winner Elena Rybakina in the quarterfinals. So, that’s a tall order and I’m frankly exhausted just typing all of that. Gauff certainly could win all of those matches, but it seems unlikely she will win major title No. 3 during the fortnight.
Bill Connelly: Gauff is definitely to the point where it would not be a surprise if she won any single tournament — her defense and speed are always elite, as is her ability to grind out wins when things threaten to go wayward. But her draw has so many landmines, and she’s only 9-6 on grass over the past two years. In fact, even including that initial upset of Venus Williams six years ago, she’s just 7-9 all time against top-50 players on grass, including three straight losses. She’ll likely have to get past three top-50 players just to get to Rybakina or Swiatek in the quarterfinals. That sounds like a bit too much to ask.
Simon Cambers: This could go one of two ways. Either Gauff goes to Wimbledon feeling as if she can do anything, buoyed by the confidence of winning at Roland Garros, or she’ll be exhausted, mentally, and lose early. It’s a funny one, this. In some ways, she should be high on confidence after winning the French Open and there’s no doubt that she’ll be walking even taller after coming out on top in Paris.
But in another way, I feel as if she never really played her best at Roland Garros, and while that’s also her thing, doing what it takes to win even when she’s not playing great tennis, on grass, where the ball will be flashing around faster than it does on clay, she won’t have much time to get up to speed, especially if any part of her game is malfunctioning.
If she can serve well, then she’ll give herself a chance of doing well, because she moves great and competes as well as anyone. But her draw is very tough; Dayana Yastremska is no pushover first up, Sofia Kenin or Taylor Townsend might be awkward in the third round and then Daria Kasatkina in the fourth and either Iga Swiatek or Elena Rybakina would be ultratough in the quarters. If she can get to Week 2, she’ll be hard to beat but that won’t be easy.
If there’s another epic Alcaraz vs. Sinner clash, who will prevail?
Maine: At this stage, I’m going to have to go with recent history and take Alcaraz. He has won eight of their 12 career meetings, including the past five. Sinner hasn’t beaten Alcaraz — on any surface, in any round of any tournament — since 2023 and has defeated him only once (three years ago) with a title on the line.
Sinner is No. 1 in the world for good reason and can beat everyone else, but Alcaraz seems to be his kryptonite. For now, anyway. (But I’ll reserve my Serena Williams-Maria Sharapova comparison for a later date.) And, since Alcaraz is the two-time defending Wimbledon champion and coming off yet another grass title at Queen’s Club, and Sinner has advanced only once to the semifinals at the All England Club, it certainly feels as if the odds would be in Alcaraz’s favor again.
Connelly: Alcaraz better hope it’s him. We’ve entered a period where it feels as if he’ll be the favorite in the natural-surface Slams (French Open, Wimbledon), and Sinner will be the favorite on hard courts (US Open, Australian Open). But obviously that French Open final was as even as possible — total points: Sinner 193, Alcaraz 192 — and had Sinner won basically one more point at the right time, we’d be talking about him having a chance at a calendar-year Slam and ripping off a “Roger Federer, 2004-07” run of Slams.
Alcaraz is definitely the favorite, both because he’s far more proven on grass and because Sinner might have to get past Djokovic on what is Djokovic’s best surface and Sinner’s worst. But … Sinner seems to be figuring things out.
Cambers: Alcaraz has the pedigree on grass, having won the title in each of the past two years, even if Sinner did win their only previous battle on the surface, at Wimbledon in 2022. Everything depends on how quickly Sinner is able to get over what happened in Paris. He seems the kind of person who can compartmentalize, who can rationalize that tournament as a good one, a step forward, even if others would be crumbling after failing on three match points in a Slam final. But it’s hard to see him being at his best again just yet, especially on a surface which, in theory, can give him issues.
Alcaraz will be tired, too, but as he showed at Queen’s, when he came through a bunch of tight matches to win the title, he will improve as the tournament progresses. With a good draw early, he can ease into the event and then will strengthen as the bigger matches arrive. If they do meet again here, that means it’s the final and you’d have to give Alcaraz the edge, mentally, simply because of what happened in Paris.
