| Venue: All England Club Dates: 3-16 July |
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Defending Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina recovered from a nervous start to avoid a first-round exit against American Shelby Rogers.
The Kazakh, whose title defence began with a double fault, won 4-6 6-1 6-2.
She later put her nerves down partly to being the champion and also down to the presence of eight-time men’s winner Roger Federer in the Royal Box.
However, last year’s runner-up Ons Jabeur and second seed Aryna Sabalenka swept through with straight-sets wins.
Rybakina’s win means she avoided becoming the first women’s defending champion since 1994 to lose at this stage.
Steffi Graf was the champion who fell at that hurdle 29 years ago when she was beaten by American Lori McNeil – and after an error-strewn first set it had looked as if Rybakina would be joining the German in the history books.
But watched from Centre Court’s Royal Box by both tennis royalty and actual royalty in the shape of Federer and the Princess of Wales, the Moscow-born 24-year-old battled to hold on to her own crown a little longer.
“Maybe that’s why I was nervous because actually I really like Roger,” Rybakina told a news conference.
“When I was younger, I was always watching him play.”
Hampered by illness in her build-up to the grass-court Grand Slam, Rybakina got off to a shaky start, dropping serve in the opening game and serving two double faults in her first two service games, and she struggled to recover as a composed Rogers went on to seal the first set with an ace.
But, in a dramatic shift of momentum, it was soon the Kazakh who held all the aces, delivering five of them in a dominant second set that she whizzed through in 29 minutes as rain hammered down on the court’s closed roof.
She broke in the opening game of the third set when a wide-looking forehand was shown to be in by Hawk-Eye, and maintained the advantage, wrapping up victory when world number 49 Rogers could only net a return.
Rybakina, who started her Wimbledon campaign last year on court 11, said it had taken her some time to adjust to being back on the stage where she won her maiden Grand Slam title.
“The double fault said it all at the beginning of the match,” she said. “This is unusual for me.
“Here it’s different. Straightaway you go to this big court.
“I think for me it’s now a new chapter and this is something I…
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