🎾 Round 1 Update: CHAOS!!!
You thought this would be easy?
And that’s it for Round 1! Whew!! Thought things would be easy? We had 23 of the 64 seeded players get knocked out, including Coco Gauff (the most popular ladies pick in the game), BOTH 3 seeds…we had Carlos Alcaraz and Taylor Fritz pushed to fifth sets…and much much more! Full recap below!
As a reminder, you can view the live leaderboard at the link below. Please keep in mind that we have to input match results manually –but all matches will be inputted by the end of each day, at the latest.
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And how bout that? After the first round, our leader is….BETTY! Hers is the ONLY team remaining that is entirely intact. In second is Maggie Ludwig and third is Andrew Berg. Berg beating Shaw at his own game? You can hear the screams of agony echoing out of Bentonville…
Last place is Ella, who I don’t actually know. 👋Hi Ella! Nice to meet you. Sorry your team sucks. She put up a total of four points. Things couldn’t have gone much worse for her. Tsitsipas was her wildcard pick, which meant his -20 point performance was doubled. Add that on top of Coco as her top-10 choice and Pegula for the American and…yikes.
Some other fun notes/observations from round 1…
The theme of the opening round HAS to be chaos. Just how chaotic were things? From longtime tennis reporter Ben Rothenberg:
After just one round, the outlook for this Wimbledon already feels fundamentally changed: 23 of the 64 seeds in the singles draws lost in the first round, the most ever at Wimbledon, and tying an all-time record at a Grand Slam event from the 2020 French Open¹. The 13 men’s seeds who lost is another Wimbledon record, and equals the Grand Slam record set at the 2004 Australian Open.
Perhaps most strikingly, the recent past wasn’t prologue at all: 6 of the 11 players who won a tour event in the grass court lead-up got bounced in the first round at Wimbledon. Tatjana Maria (WTA 500 Queen’s Club), Alexander Bublik (ATP 500 Halle), McCartney Kessler (WTA 250 Nottingham), Jessica Pegula (WTA 500 Bad Homburg), Maya Joint (WTA 250 Eastbourne), and Tallon Griekspoor (ATP 250 Mallorca) all lost their opening contests.
As for our game, Jessica Pegula was the round’s big loser, putting up a brutal -80 points in her Round 1 upset. 6 teams (26%) had her rostered. Coco was helped a touch by getting the bonus for having the most aces in her match, but her upset means a -78 point performance for the most popular ladies pick in the game (she’s on 69% of rosters). Zverev earned back some with tiebreakers and forcing a fifth set, but his loss means a -57-point performance. Though, since most of us hate Germans, nobody took him. Save for noted Germany aficionado Chucky Campbell. Tough luck, Chuck. But that’s what happens when you side with the Krauts.
Zverev, by the way, was none too thrilled with his loss. After the match, he told the press, “I feel, generally speaking, quite alone in life at the moment, which is a feeling that is not very nice.” Alrighty, then…
On the other side of that coin, the Brazilian wunderkind João Fonseca put up the biggest point total, scoring 53 points. That’s courtesy of bonuses for a straight sets win, most aces, and beating a higher-ranked player. Not bad for the 18 year old who may well be the most exciting player in the sport. He’s rostered by four teams (17%). Of course, as for me? I took both Pegula and Fonseca. Not sure what that makes me…
Looking at the rosters, Coco Gauff and Jack Draper were the most popular picks. They were tough to pass up for those USA and UK player slots, respectively. Both were selected by 16 teams each, or 69% of all rosters. Nice.
All but four teams had either Pegula or Coco as their pick for the American category (all four of those took Fritz, who nearly went down too). Those four Fritz teams could have a big advantage if he makes a bit of a run. But those two matches being such wipeout actually softens the effects for the rest of us. The category is, in essence, a wash.
A category that is NOT a wash? The 11-32 seeds. Somehow, in this wild round of upsets, every single player who was selected is still alive. And that’s with 8 different players being rostered from the field. WELL DONE EVERYBODY!!!!!!
REMEMBER! Championships are NOT won in round 1. The big points are still up for grabs. Most top-10 and all former champ selections are still alive. Nobody’s out of the running just yet.
Some of the stories you missed in the action on the grass courts the past few days…
💔 Paula Badosa and Stefanos Tsitsipas are tennis’ most famous couple. Or…were its most famous couple? Right before the tournament, the players unfollowed each other on social media. And then, both players were upset in round 1. To quote the immortal rom-com Wimbledon: “Love means nothing in tennis! It’s zero!”
🥵 When a fan passed out from heat, who else but…Carlos Alcaraz (!) sprung to the rescue with a water bottle?
🇨🇱 A little more than a year ago, Nicolas Jarry was ranked No. 16 in the world. He was chosen to be Chile’s flag bearer at the 2024 Olympics. But then…he has plummeted down the rankings, struggling to find any form, losing more than half of all matches he’s played. He tumbled all the way to No. 145 and had to earn his way into this tournament through qualifiers. But on Monday? Down two sets against No. 8 Holger Rune, Jarry fought back from down two sets—something Jarry has never, ever done before in his career. But that’s tennis: anything can change in one moment.
🙄 Former world No. 1 and 2021 US Open Champ Daniil Medvedev (seeded 9th) lost to No. 64 Bejamin Bonzi on Monday. Clearly Danii wasn’t too thrilled to be confronted with an in-form Bonzi who was playing the match of his life. Right before the tiebreak in the first set, cameras picked up Medvedev talking to himself, frustrated. “Why not play like this every day, win millions, be rich?” he asked Bonzi. Then he shrugged. “No! He decided to do it just once this year.”
🇵🇭 Alexandra Eala, the 20 year old Filipino rising star, has been on tennis fans’ radars since she won the girls’ US Open in 2022. That was the first time a Filipino player had ever won a junior title—and were she to ever win a major now that she’s gone pro, she would be the first Slam champion from the 4th most populous country on the globe (Felicisimo Ampon, who played in the 50’s, is considered the greatest Filipino player of all time, and fun note about my man Felicisimo: he was all of 5 foot 3!). Anyways…before the tournament, Nike surprised Eala with a special hair tie that featured the national flower of the Philippines, sampaguita. The tie said, “Kung may tinanim, may aanihin.”Which translates to: “If you plant, you will harvest.”
That should do it for today. As a reminder, check out the live leaderboard whenever you want. We’ll send our next email update following the conclusion of round 2 on Wednesday.