British tennis suffered its worst day at Wimbledon this century as ten players crashed out in the first round.
Cameron Norrie, Britain’s leading light in the men’s draw after Jack Draper’s last-minute withdrawal, was seeded 26th at this year’s Championships, but he found himself shocked by American qualifier Michael Zheng on Court No2.
The 30-year-old, who reached the semi-finals at the All England Club back in 2022, was dumped out after a stunning performance from his 22-year-old opponent, who emerged a 6-7(7) 6-2 6-7(2) 6-3 7-6(4) victor.
Norrie was one of ten British players to be beaten in a dismal showing on Monday. It likely would have been 11 had Jack Pinnington Jones not been saved by bad light. Across 31 completed sets, British players won just five. There were no victories.
In addition to that, after Emma Raducanu's withdrawal on the eve of the Championships through injury, Draper added to the misery by pulling out himself due to an arm injury.
Mika Stojsavljevic narrowly avoided losing 12 games in a row before Harriet Dart fell to an agonising defeat as the British women struggled in their first-round matches.
Dart’s clash with Jelena Ostapenko was moved up to No 1 Court due to Raducanu’s withdrawal and the Briton very nearly made the most of that bigger stage.
She lose the first set but took it to a decider and then had a break point at 4-4, which would have given her the chance to serve for the match.
However, Ostapenko saved that and then broke in the very next game to secure a 6-3 3-6 6-4 win.
Stojsavljevic was appearing in the main draw of a Grand Slam for only the second time, a year on from making her debut on home soil.
The 17-year-old again received a wildcard this year but was handed a difficult first-round draw against 11th seed Belinda Bencic, who reached the semi-finals at Wimbledon 12 months ago.
The teenager made the perfect start, breaking Bencic in the opening game of the match and then consolidating that, but the tide swiftly turned against her.
Bencic won the next six games to take the opening set and then breezed to the cusp of victory in the second.
After losing 11 consecutive games, Stojsavljevic prevented a second-set bagel by holding with an ace, raising her fist and smiling in response to the loud ovation from the crowd.
However, Bencic got the job done in the following game, wrapping up a 6-2 6-1 victory in just over an hour.
Alycia Parks beat Alicia Dudeney 6-3 6-3 , and Oliver Tarvet could not lift the home spirits either. He faced Carlos Alcaraz on Centre Court last year and was eyeing another strong Wimbledon showing.
However, Tarvet fell to defeat in four sets to Frenchman Arthur Rinderknech, who won 7-6 7-6 4-6 7-5 in a tight match with just two breaks of serve.
Elsewhere for the Brits on the opening day at SW19, qualifier Max Basing was thrashed 6-3 6-0 6-0 by Japanese No2 Shintaro Mochizuki on Court 14.
Felix Gill also lost in straight sets as highly-rated Spaniard Rafael Jodar eased to a 6-3 6-3 7-5 victory.
Teenager Hannah Klugman improved in the second set but did not have enough to challenge former champion Barbora Krejcikova, who won 6-1 6-4.
Almost exactly at the same time, Mimi Xu was knocked out. The 18-year-old took a set off Daria Kasatkina but could not keep that level up in the decider as the Australia progressed with a 6-2 3-6 6-2 victory.
Diane Parry saw off Francesca Jones 6-4 6-4 late in the day.
Pinnington Jones was close to defeat when that match against Brandon Nakashima was suspended as light faded.
Nakashima will resume with a 6-3 7-6 4-3 lead over the Briton on Tuesday.
