Ten out of 10 is a great statistic, unless the 10 are losers. British tennis endured its worst day at Wimbledon this century as all 10 Britons who completed their matches were beaten. And it might have been 11 had the light not faded on Jack Pinnington Jones, who trails Brandon Nakashima by two sets and 4-3.
Big runs by Emma Raducanu at Queen’s and Jack Draper in Eastbourne had raised hopes of a strong British showing here this year but, as Draper joined Raducanu in pulling out through injury on Monday, one after another slipped to defeat.
In truth, most of them lost against higher-ranked opponents but the defeats of Harriet Dart and Cam Norrie lingered longest, with Dart twice up a break in the final set only to lose 6-3, 3-6, 6-4 against the former French Open champion Jelena Ostapenko and Norrie going down in a final-set tie-break against an American college champion, Michael Zheng.
Dart, now ranked 152, was expecting to play on court 17 until she got a call late on Sunday night that she would be replacing Raducanu on No 1 Court. Every British player dreams of playing on a big court in front of their home crowd at Wimbledon but when Dart went down 4-0 in the opener, it didn’t look good.
Dart has always been a fighter, though, and she picked herself up impressively, moving well despite a niggling foot issue and hitting some flashy winners. After levelling the match, she broke twice to lead 1-0 and then 2-1 in the third and hit back from 4-2 down to level at 4-4, with Ostapenko allowing the crowd’s enthusiasm to get to her after a double-fault, her sarcastic clapping drawing a few pantomime-style boos.
But the Latvian, who narrowly missed out on a seeded spot here, pulled herself together when it mattered to close out victory. “I thought it was an incredible match,” Dart said. “I think it was very challenging with the circumstances. We were both told, I think, past 10pm last night [about] the schedule change. Not really heard that before. I guess it’s the same for both of us.
“The reality is I was up a break twice, but it’s a long way from the finish line. When you play players of the stature of Jelena, you know there is one or two points in it. And I think in the end that’s what it kind of came down to. I also think the second game of the third, she hit a line and two dead net cords. Today it felt like luck wasn’t really in my favour.
“It’s really nice to play in front of a home crowd, and especially a rowdy crowd because I always think British people are generally quite subdued when they watch and are quite polite. So it was actually really nice to play in an atmosphere which felt like it was heavily supportive of me. So that was an amazing thing. I think for me, this is the first time I have really felt that here. I really felt their support on my side. It was great to have that energy and to kind of experience that.”
Norrie has always stood tall, the last British man standing at numerous grand slam events down the years. A semi‑finalist at Wimbledon in 2022 and a quarter-finalist here last year, the No 29 seed came into the tournament with high hopes of another big run. But his usual sharpness was missing and he was edged out 6-7 (7), 6-2, 6-7 (2), 6-3, 7-6 (4) by Zheng, the world No 143.
“If I could have had a few more matches leading in, I think I can win this match,” Norrie said. “There were so many small moments in the match that he did really well to go on his side. So, yeah, credit to him.”
Zheng is a talented player. Like Norrie, he attended university in the US and won the national championship (the NCAA title) twice. A fine athlete, Zheng served brilliantly, banging down 21 aces with the Briton breaking just once. In all, he hit 74 winners and in the deciding tie-break, as Norrie faltered early on, Zheng held his nerve.
Hannah Klugman lost 6-1, 6-4 against the 2024 champion Barbora Krejcikova, Mika Stojsavljevic lost 6-2, 6-1 to Belinda Bencic and Alicia Dudeney acquitted herself well but lost 6-3, 6-3 to Alycia Parks.
Mimi Xu was beaten 6-2, 3-6, 6-2 by Daria Kasatkina and Max Basing, who came through qualifying to make his first main draw at a grand slam tournament, was hammered 6-3, 6-0, 6-0 by Shintaro Mochizuki of Japan. Felix Gill was beaten 6-3, 6-3, 7-5 by Spain’s newest star, Rafael Jódar, while Fran Jones lost 6-4, 6-4 to France’s Diane Parry.
Oliver Tarvet made headlines when he qualified for the main draw last year despite a ranking of 733. A year on, with his ranking up to 324, he received a wildcard into the event and fought valiantly against the No 25 seed, Arthur Rinderknech, but went down 7-6 (4), 7-6 (4), 4-6, 7-5.
