My Wimbledon top 10

Linda Noskova with her 2026 Wimbledon trophy. That Grand Slam Champion glow. 🏆✨

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— The Tennis Letter (@thetennisletter.bsky.social) July 11, 2026 at 1:14 PM

Here are my top 10 Wimbledon occurrences, in ascending order:

10. Gone too soon: Three former Wimbledon champions played in the tournament, and all three wee potential second-time champions. Sadly, all three had challenges that have set them back. In 2022 champion Elena Rybakina's case, the challenge was chronic illness, which has damaged her momentum on the tour. Rybakina, seeded 2nd, didn't make it past the third round, in which she lost in straight sets to veteran player Elise Mertens. There's no shame in losing to Mertens, but it was unfortunate to see Rybakina make such an early exit.

9. In for the long haul: Anna Pushkareva won the junior girls title, defeating Sun Xinran 5-7, 6-3, 6-4 in the final. The two-hour and 23-minute match was the longest junior girls final in Wimbledon history. 

8. Who are you, and what have you done with Iga Swiatek?: Last year around this time, tennis fans and media were talking about what a slump Iga Swiatek was in. Well, she showed everybody by arriving in London and winning her first Wimbledon title. But, as I mentioned earlier, all three former champions came into this tournament with challenges, and Swiatek's challenge was that she was, once again, in what some might call a slump. There is no denying that the former world number 1 and six-time major champion simply hasn't been herself for a while, but who was this in London?

In the first round, Swiatek faced Taylor Townsend, a formidable opponent. They went three sets, and Swiatek won, but after the match, she was in tears, presumably from relief, but one has to wonder what's going on, what with the coaching changes and the obvious lack of confidence. The Polish star won her second round match against Karolina Pliskova, but went out in straight sets in the third round against rising star Alex Eala. Eala also defeated Swiatek last year in Miami, and is now 2-1 against her. 

The best players on the tour are going to learn how to beat a champion, yes. And young, talented players, perhaps, are going to go all out to try to do so; there's nothing shameful about losing to Alex Eala. But that was just one piece in a puzzle that has become more mysterious as the season has progressed.

7. Just when I thought nothing else could surprise me: Six-time Wimbledon champion and former world number 1 Diede De Groot, who has steadily been making a comeback since she had hip surgery, made it to the final, but lost to top seed Yui Kamiji. There's nothing shocking about that--Kamiji has been the queen of wheelchair tennis since De Groot had to leave the tour for a while. The surprise was the scoreline--6-0, 6-0. De Groot, who double-faulted repeatedly, had seemed fine throughout the tournament, but she did experience a recent retirement from another tournament, so one has to wonder whether there was some sort of relapse.

Top seeds Kamiji and Zhu Zhenzhen won the doubles title, defeating 2nd seeds Li Xiaohui and Wang Ziying 6-4, 7-5 in the final. This is Kamiji's ninth Wimbledon doubles title. She also won the singles title, and--in doing so--achieved the career Golden Slam; she is the first Japanese women to do so.

6. Coming into her own: Marta Kostyuk has played impressive tennis for a long time, but—like many other good players—her head kept getting in her way. She worked on that problem, and also made her game more aggressive, then went on a 16-match clay court win tear, which included her winning Madris, and culminated with her reaching the Roland-Garros semifinals. Kostyuk showed up in London with the same fire, and again, advanced to the semifinals. She was stopped by eventual champion Linda Noskova, but it was quite a run. It will be interesting to see what the Ukrainian star does during hard court season.

5.Try again: Alona Ostapenko, who has become a considerable force in doubles play, was part of the runner-up mixed doubles team at Wimbledon in 2019. This year, she and Marcelo Arevalo, seeded 2nd, won the title, defeating Storm Hunter and Marc Polmans in the final. 

4.  Czech-palooza!: Czech players dominated this Wimbledon tournament. Four players--Barbora Krejcikova, Linda Noskova, Karolina Muchova, and Marie Bouzkova--all advanced to the round of 16. Krejcikova, the third of the former Wimbledon champions (her challenge has been both injury and illness), made it past Roland-Garros champion Mirra Andreeva, and played a very spirited and entertaining match against Muchova, which she lost. Both Muchova and Noskova advanced to the quarterfinals, and then advanced all the way to the final. 

In the meantime, a pair of Czech teens, Jana Kovackova and Katerina Zajickova, seeded 5th, won the junior girls doubles title in a very close final. Kovackova and Zajickova also won the Roland-Garros title.

3. Coco and Karo--together again, as you always wanted to see them!:  Karolina Muchova had played Coco Gauff seven times, and had won only one of those matches. But the way the Czech star was playing in London, it was reasonable to think that we were in for some first-rate tennis when they met in the semifinals. It turns out that we had no idea what we were in for. Muchova dominated the first set, then Gauff dominated the second set, and there was a very well-played third set, which went to a tiebreak. 

No one who saw that tiebreak will forget it any time soon. Muchova, dealing with some sort of abdominal strain on her right side, nevertheless put the Muchova Show into high gear, whipping a winning volley from her shoelaces, and hitting a dive volley, which left her body-down on the court while her racket flew out of her hands. Gauff's moves were less dramatic, but just as deadly--Muchova had to save a match point. And after almost two and a half hours, Muchova won the match, 6-2, 1-6, 7-6 (10).

2. Never count her out: There was a time when--if you wanted to win a doubles match (or a tournament), all you had to do was get Kiki Mladenovic to be your partner. (One year, in Charleston, Lucie Safarova arrived without her doubles partner. Mladenovic arrived the same way, so--at the last minute--they decided to be partners. They had no time to practice--at all. I asked Safarova what she thought her chances would be in doubles, and she just gave me a side-eye. She and Mladenovic went on to win the tournament.)

Mladenovic (playing with regular partners Timea Babos and Caroline Garcia) has won the Australian Open twice, and the French Open four times. She was a finalist three times at the U.S. Open, and--twelve years ago--she and Babos were finalists at Wimbledon. And now, 33-year-old Mladenovic has finally added a Wimbledon title to her impressive doubles resume. She and partner Guo Hanyu, seeded 10th, upset top seeds Katerina Siniakova and Taylor Townsend in the quarterfinals. They then went on to upset 2nd seeds Gaby Dabrowski and Luisa Stefanie 6-3, 7-5 in the final.

1. Czechs are always in fashion: For the first time in Wimbledon history, two Czech players contested the women's final--the artistic, yet hard-hitting Karolina Muchova, and the also hard-hitting, potential star-in-the-making Linda Noskova. Brilliant Czechs retire from the tour, but they are always succeeded by young, potentially brilliant countrywomen. It's a Czech thing. Noskova has stood out for a while, and shortly before she arrived in London, she demonstrated her grass skills by winning Berlin. 

In the final, Noskova took the first set 6-3, then--at 5-3, she served for the match. And then Muchova made a comeback so impressive, it was even more dramatic than her semifinal third set tiebreak antics. She saved five match points, and the match went to a third set, but--by then--Noskova had regained her mojo, and she emerged the 2026 Wimbledon champion, defeating her opponent 6-3, 5-7, 6-3.

After the match, Muchova acknowledged that the semifinal match had taken something out of her physically, and also--that she had experienced an issue with her nerves because she wanted so badly to win. This acknowledgment brings to mind her loss in the 2023 Roland-Garros final, in which she was up a break in the third set before losing to Iga Swiatek. 

And of course, there was the matter of Muchova's opponent, who--though she wobbled in the second set--was able to get her head together and find a way to win. 21-year-old Noskova's mother died of cancer two years ago, right before Noskova played at the 2024 Wimbledon tournament, and--in her trophy acceptance speech--Noskova thanked her. "I definitely would not be standing here without her, so thank you."

Tomorrow, Noskova will be number 7 in the world, and that world will now see her as a Wimbledon champion.