Perhaps the only certainty in women’s tennis on the eve of Wimbledon is that Carla Suárez Navarro continues to be the recipient of deeply unfortunate draws as she sees out the interrupted final stretch of her career on her own terms.
Suárez Navarro, a former world No 6, seven times a major quarter-finalist and owner of one of the last classic single-handed backhands in the women’s game, was diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma shortly before last year’s US Open. While her rivals were returning to competition and travelling the world in the second half of 2020, Suárez Navarro underwent eight sessions of chemotherapy over several months until she announced that she had been cured this April.
In her first match since completing her treatment at Roland Garros earlier this month, she drew the former US Open champion Sloane Stephens in the first round. The Spaniard served for the match before narrowly losing to an opponent who eventually reached the fourth round.
It has only become more difficult. This will be Suárez Navarro’s final year on tour and in her last Wimbledon, where she has reached the fourth round three times, Suárez Navarro will start against the world No 1 and tournament favourite, Ashleigh Barty. In the absence of the defending champion from 2019, Simona Halep, they will open up Tuesday’s play on Centre Court.
“It’s incredible to have Carla back,” said Barty on Saturday. “When she came back on tour, it was just a sense of excitement from everyone. To know that she’s got this tremendous resilience of character and strength and longevity. She’s been on the tour for a long time at the very top of the game. I think for me to be able to experience opening Centre Court on Tuesday with her is going to be really cool.”
That is the full extent to the predictability of the women’s draw this year, two weeks after Barbora Krejcikova’s Roland Garros win demonstrated just how many players are capable of catching fire and burning through the week. Krejcikova achieved the distinction of winning Roland Garros before she had ever competed in the Wimbledon main draw as a singles player. As she grows accustomed to the grass underneath her feet, she will also have to navigate her new reality as a grand slam champion.
“I just have to come back on the ground,” said Krejcikova. “I just have to work hard again, just try to improve because otherwise I won’t be playing these tournaments and I won’t be playing these players for upcoming years. If I stop, I’m just not going to be good enough any more. I mean, I feel that people see me differently. I think that they have maybe higher expectations and everything.
“But for me right now I just feel that I shouldn’t put any pressure on myself any more. I’ve pretty much achieved everything that I’ve always wanted. Right now the only goal for me is to really enjoy tennis, enjoy and just try to improve every time I step on the court, try to learn things.”
Barty, a junior champion at Wimbledon a decade ago who professes her love for grass at every opportunity, has not competed since suffering a hip injury shortly before the French Open and retiring from the event. She will be flying blindly, competing in her first match on grass in two years when she steps on to Centre Court on Tuesday.
For those who have not yet built up experience on grass, contention in this tournament feels far away. Iga Swiatek and Bianca Andreescu, two major champions, arrived in the grass season with a combined zero main draw match wins on grass and now have to navigate Wimbledon with two hefty targets on their back.
Serena Williams would appear to have a great opportunity. She played enough matches in Paris to shake off any residual rust that caked her game in the three months since her run to the Australian Open semi-final and should she be able to rediscover her form on a far more advantageous surface for her game, there is no rising dominant figure on grass looming, like Naomi Osaka on hard courts in Melbourne. But this is a particularly unpredictable period in the women’s game where so many players are capable of producing on the big stage. Only the coming two weeks will tell.
