The 2025 Wimbledon Championships wrapped its second round on Thursday, with the grass court Grand Slam seeing just 15 of the tournament's 32 seeded players advance to the Friday and Saturday's third round.
A full half of the WTA's Top 10 players did not survive the week, with 2024 Wimbledon finalist and world No. 5 Jasmine Paolini joining four first-round star exits by falling to unseeded Kamilla Rakhimova in a three-set, second-round battle on Wednesday.
At the same time, unseeded fan favorites like Japan's No. 53 Naomi Osaka and England's own No. 40 Emma Raducanu secured third-round spots at the London Slam, joining top surviving contenders like No. 4 Iga Świątek and defending Wimbledon champion No. 16 Barbora Krejčíková.
Notably, a full five US players managed to move ahead, tied for the largest national contingent still standing at the tournament.
Led by 2025 Australian Open champion No. 8 Madison Keys, the US group also includes No. 10 Emma Navarro and No. 12 Amanda Anisimova, as well as unseeded players No. 54 Danielle Collins and No. 55 Hailey Baptiste.
With matches against Świątek and No. 7 Mirra Andreeva, respectively, Collins and Baptiste have a tough third round ahead — though Navarro's battle against the 2024 champ Krejčíková arguably headlines Saturday's slate.
How to watch Wimbledon this weekend
While world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka is still holding strong in the dwindling field, this year's Wimbledon play is proving that the London Slam is anyone's to take, as the grass court humbles even the sport's top stars.
Expect the twists and turns to continue as tennis's best battle for spots in Sunday's Round of 16.
Round-of-32 Wimbledon play kicks off at 6 AM ET on Friday, with live continuous coverage of the tournament airing on ESPN.
The grass court chaos of Wimbledon didn't disappoint this week, as the unpredictable surface claimed more than one surprise victim in the 2025 Grand Slam's first round.
A full 10 of the London tournament's 32 seeded players fell in the competition's first round, including four of the WTA's Top 10: World No. 2 Coco Gauff, No. 3 Jessica Pegula, No. 6 Qinwen Zheng, and No. 9 Paula Badosa.
"I should just play no tournaments, get no wins, then roll into Wimbledon, and maybe I'll have better results," US star Pegula joked after her two-set Tuesday loss to Italy's No. 116 Elisabetta Cocciaretto, referencing her recent wins.
Gauff's short Wimbledon outing also represented a new challenge for the 21-year-old standout, as the top-ranked US tennis player struggled to bounce back after winning the 2025 French Open last month.
"I feel like mentally I was a little bit overwhelmed with everything that came afterwards," Gauff told ESPN. "So I didn’t feel like I had enough time to celebrate and also get back into it."
The upsets continued as Wimbledon entered its second round on Wednesday morning, claiming several more seeded players like world No. 5 Jasmine Paolini and No. 15 Diana Shnaider, though both No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka and unseeded fan favorite Naomi Osaka cruised into the Slam's third round on two-set wins.
No. 8 Madison Keys now leads the US contingent, with fellow US contender No. 12 Amanda Anisimova joining the 2025 Australian Open champion in snagging their own two-set, second-round victories on Wednesday.
How to watch the 2025 Wimbledon Championships
Second-round play at the 2025 Wimbledon women's singles tournament continues on Thursday, as seven US players — including No. 10 Emma Navarro and No. 28 Sofia Kenin — look to advance to the competition's third round.
Live continuous coverage of the London Grand Slam airs on ESPN.
The third Grand Slam of 2025 is officially underway, as the world's top tennis stars hit the grass courts in London for the annual Wimbledon Championships on Monday.
World No. 16 Barbora Krejčíková enters as the Slam's reigning champion, with all of the WTA's current Top 10 — none of whom have ever won at Wimbledon — looking to dethrone the 2024 victor.
No. 3 Jessica Pegula looks to be an early frontrunner, as the US star picked up steam following her defeat of No. 4 Iga Świątek 6-4, 7-5 in Saturday's championship match of the 2025 Bad Homburg Open, a Wimbledon tune-up tournament.
A 2023 Wimbledon quarterfinalist, Pegula has already earned three titles this year, gaining significant momentum as she hunts a career-first Grand Slam trophy.
"[Pegula has] an amazing game, and showed it throughout the tournament," Świątek said following Saturday's loss. "Hopefully, we will have many more finals together."
The first day of 2025 Wimbledon action saw No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka cruise through her first-round match against Canada's No. 194 Carson Branstine in straight sets, while No. 8 Madison Keys battled to a narrow three-set victory over Romania's No. 58 Elena-Gabriela Ruse.
Fellow US contender No. 12 Amanda Anisimova played the most dominant first-round match of the Slam, ousting Kazakhstan's No. 33 Yulia Putintseva 6-0, 6-0 to open her tournament run.
Italy's No. 5 Jasmine Paolini, a 2024 Wimbledon finalist, also kicked off her 2025 run with a win, downing Latvia's No. 402 Anastasija Sevastova in three sets on Monday afternoon.
Pegula will open her campaign against Italy's No. 116 Elisabetta Cocciaretto on the second day of first-round action at 6 AM ET, with Świątek, 2025 French Open champ No. 2 Coco Gauff, and 2024 Wimbledon quarterfinalist No. 10 Emma Navarro also rounding out Tuesday's bill.
How to watch the 2025 Wimbledon Championships
The 2025 Wimbledon women's tournament runs through the July 12th championship.
Live continuous coverage of the London Grand Slam airs on ESPN.
The WTA Tour's biggest names are prepping for a challenge, eyeing next Monday's start of the Wimbledon Grand Slam while watching the sport's dark horses dominate the grass court.
Wimbledon's 2023 champ Markéta Vondroušová stole the spotlight this weekend, as the injury-plagued Czech pro earned her first title in two years at the 2025 Berlin Open.
Even more, the world No. 91 player claimed the trophy in style, taking down top tennis stars like world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka, No. 6 Madison Keys, and No. 12 Diana Shnaider en route to besting China's No. 33 Wang Xinyu in Sunday's back-and-forth three-set final.
"I feel like it could not have been better for us here," the 25-year-old said after the win. "We were all working really hard to get me back [from an August 2024 shoulder surgery] and I felt like, you know, we came here to try to win the first match and now this is happening. So I'm just very grateful to be standing here."
Vondroušová will look to ride the weekend's momentum to a potential second Wimbledon trophy, a title that has so far eluded every player currently ranked in the WTA's Top 10 — including Sabalenka, No. 2 Coco Gauff, and No. 8 Iga Świątek.
Of the sport's current elite tier of players, only Italy's No. 4 Jasmine Paolini has appeared in the London Grand Slam's final, falling to Czechia's No. 17 Barbora Krejčíková in the 2024 title match.
The highest-ranked previous Wimbledon champion is Kazakhstan's No. 11 Elena Rybakina, who hoisted the trophy in 2022.
Newly minted 2025 French Open champion Coco Gauff saw a short-lived return to the court this week, with the world No. 2 exiting the 2025 Berlin Open in a straight-set, first-match loss on Thursday — Gauff's first contest since winning Roland-Garros.
The 21-year-old US star earned an automatic berth to the second round of the grass-court Wimbledon tune-up tournament, before falling to China's No. 49 Wang Xinyu 6-3, 6-3 in the Round-of-16 matchup.
Gauff visibly struggled in Berlin after her breakthrough victory on clay, tallying 25 unforced errors and seven double faults in the two-set loss.
Despite the stumble, Gauff took this week's setback in stride, acknowledging that her trip to Berlin was "short but sweet" and promising to "come back stronger next year" in a social media post.
"It was a tough one today but happy to be back on court," Gauff wrote. "Tried my best to adjust with the quick turnaround but it wasn't enough. As always, I'm learning as I go so I hope to do better next time."
Seemingly unfazed as she eyes what is arguably her weakest Grand Slam, Gauff will aim to advance past Wimbledon's fourth round for the first time in her career when the London Slam starts later this month.
"I'm excited to get some more practices in to be ready for Wimbledon," she noted.
Wimbledon is leveling up, as the annual London-based Grand Slam announced Thursday that it's increasing its purse by 7% across the board in 2025, pushing the total prize money to £53.5 million ($72.59 million) ahead of tennis tournament's June 30th kick-off.
Both the 2025 women's and men's singles champions will earn winner's checks in the amount of £3 million ($4.07 million) — an 11.1% increase over the amount won by 2024 champ Barbora Krejčíková.
With increases across all Slam events, from singles and doubles to wheelchair competitions, even athletes who stumble early will see a raise over last year's competition.
For example, singles players ousted in this year's first round will take home 10% more than in 2024, earning deposits of £66,000 ($89,530).
The 2025 total purse now doubles the prize money offered by the tournament a decade ago, and makes Wimbledon the biggest potential payday across all four of the sport's Grand Slams.
"We're immensely proud of the fact that, if you look back 10 years, you can see the increase over that period and 7% this year," said All England Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club chair Deborah Jevans. "And we have listened to the players, we have engaged with the players."
Women's tennis got a boost on Wednesday, as the WTA announced it would institute rankings pauses for players who step away from competition to undergo fertility protection treatments like egg or embryo freezing.
Players returning from a procedure can opt to receive a Special Entry Ranking, calculated using their 12-week average ranking starting from eight weeks before taking leave.
Players can use that unique ranking to enter up to three tournaments at the WTA 500, 250, or 125 levels before the governing body will again institute traditional calculations.
The protection extends to any player ranked among the world's top 750 who spends more than 10 weeks out of competition.
These latest rankings protection further secures the careers of tennis pro parents, who first earned special rankings in the 2019 WTA season after Serena Willams and Victoria Azarenka saw their seedings plummet simply from stepping away from competition to give birth.
The move also comes three months after the WTA agreed to grant players paid maternity leave for the very first time.
"I'm incredibly proud of our sport in recognizing the importance of fertility treatments for female athletes," said 2017 US Open champ and longtime reproductive health support advocate Sloane Stephens. "For any woman, the conversation of family life versus a career is nuanced and complex."
"It's truly ground-breaking and will empower this generation, and future generations of players, to continue with the sport they love without having to compromise."
Welcome to another episode of Sports Are Fun!
Every week on Sports Are Fun! presented by Amazon Business, co-hosts soccer legend Kelley O'Hara, sports journalist Greydy Diaz, and JWS intern BJ serve up their hottest takes on the biggest women's sports headlines.
This week, retired NWSL great Merritt Mathias joined the Sports Are Fun! team once again. And while there was plenty of soccer and basketball talk throughout the episode, US tennis Coco Gauff and her 2025 French Open win took center stage.
"First and foremost, Coco Gauff," said O'Hara, setting the scene. "What an absolute victory for her — wins the French Open, beats Sabalenka. And she's talked about this win, how she has manifested this and the amount of mental visualization that she's put into it. youI'm curious, do you guys manifest?"
"Of course!" Mathias said with a laugh. "If you're not manifesting, what are you doing?"
"I really think we saw an incredible display of her mental toughness, her resilience, her composure, in that match," said Diaz. "And I'm just so proud of her. She's the first American since Serena Williams to win it in 10 years."
"I love the manifesting part. I love that she shares all of what she's willing to do in order to be great," added Mathias. "If you're a young girl wanting to play tennis, to see that there is so much that goes into being great other than just the practice... It's cool to do that. You should lean into that."
Alongside the French Open finalists, Sports Are Fun! also tackled the USWNT’s emerging core, Texas's Women's College World Series win, the NWSL standings, US Women taking home the grand prize at TST, and more.
'Sports Are Fun!' goes all in on the Gauff-Sabalenka rivalry
According to the Sports Are Fun! crew, the budding rivalry between Coco Gauff and Aryna Sabalenka is just what the tennis world needs.
"Before we go to our next little topic, I think we have to talk about the post-game press conference," Mathias interjected. "Sabalenka basically comes off of losing this championship match. It's well fought. But over the course of the match, she has a lot of errors — I think it was 70."
"Obviously tensions are high — she started to unravel, we all saw the spiral happen on the court," she continued. "So she goes into this postgame presser and is asked a question about the match, and she's basically like, 'I don't believe Coco Gauff played well or had an incredible game, I think I struggled and had a lot of errors.'"
"Both of those things can be true," O'Hara said. "If you didn't have a great match but Coco did have a good match, you can say both. But she was not."
"You should be gracious in defeat, right?" she continued. "And it is very difficult as an athlete at times. I've seen many people, myself included, say things post-match that I wish I could take back."
"10,000%," agreed Mathias. "But I think this is also what the tennis world always wanted Maria Sharapova and Serena Williams to be, which was never that — Maria Sharapova was never stepping even close to Serena Williams. This though? This is epic. This is like Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer on the women's side."
"Yeah," O'Hara agreed. "We now have our two athletes that are going to go head-to-head, expected to be in the finals."
"And one bit of a head case, so it makes it even better," laughed Mathias.
About 'Sports Are Fun!' with Kelley O'Hara
'Sports Are Fun!' is a show that’ll remind you why you fell in love with women's sports in the first place.
Join World Cup champ, Olympic gold medalist, and aspiring barista Kelley O'Hara as she sits down with sports journalist Greydy Diaz and a revolving cast of co-hosts and friends. Together, they're talking the biggest, funnest, and most need-to-know stories in the world of women’s sports.
From on-court drama to off-field shenanigans, to candid (and silly) chats with the most important personalities in the space, this show screams "Sports Are Fun!"
Subscribe to Just Women's Sports on YouTube to never miss an episode.
World No. 2 Coco Gauff earned her second career Grand Slam title on Saturday, taking down No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka in a windy 6-7 (5), 6-2, 6-4 battle to claim the 2025 French Open trophy.
Having reached the final once before in 2022, the 2025 championship made Gauff the first US player to win the French Open since Serena Williams did so in 2015.
"Losing in the finals here three years ago had created a lot of doubt in my head," the 21-year-old wrote on social media after her Roland Garros victory. "I thought my dreams were so close to happening but would never come true. So to be here…means absolutely everything."
Despite Sabalenka's championship match loss — a performance that saw the 27-year-old commit 70 unforced errors — she will retain the world No. 1 ranking thanks to a generally strong 2025 season so far.
Frustrated with her performance, Sabalenka faced backlash due to her emotional post-match comments on the loss — and, notably, on Gauff's level of play.
She later walked back those words on Sunday, clarifying in an Instagram story that "both things can be true… I didn't play my best, and Coco stepped up and played with poise and purpose. She earned that title."
Gauff, US standout No. 3 Jessica Pegula, and Italy's No. 4 Jasmine Paolini also maintained their WTA positions behind Sabalenka, with French Cinderella story Loïs Boisson skyrocketing 296 spots to No. 65 after her landmark semifinals run.
In contrast, four-time French Open champion Iga Świątek continues to dip, falling from No. 5 to No. 7 after last Thursday's semifinal loss to Sabalenka.
With two of the season's four majors in the books, the US is leading the charge, as Gauff joins reigning Australian Open champion No. 8 Madison Keys as 2025's Grand Slam winners.
World No. 2 Coco Gauff earned a ticket to her third career Grand Slam final on Thursday, advancing to the 2025 French Open championship match by ending French wild-card No. 361 Loïs Boisson's Cinderella story with a dominant 6-1, 6-2 semifinal victory.
"This is my first time playing a French player here. I was mentally prepared that [the crowd] was to be 99% for her, so I was trying to block it out," said the 21-year-old US star. "When [the crowd was] saying her name, I was saying my name to myself just to psyche myself up."
"[Loïs has] shown she's one of the best players in the world," Gauff added about her opponent's remarkable tournament run following their clash. "I hope we have many more battles in the future, especially here. Today it was just my day."
The player standing between the 2023 US Open champ and her second Grand Slam trophy is none other than world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka, who looked at ease taking down four-time French Open winner No. 5 Iga Świątek 7-6 (1), 4-6, 6-0 in the tournament's other semifinal on Thursday.
Notably, the three-set defeat was Świątek's first Roland-Garros loss in an astounding 1,457 days — a 26-match winning streak that dated back to 2021.
The 2025 French Open will now be the third straight Slam in which Sabalenka has reached the final, with the top-ranked tennis star making six WTA title-match appearances in 2025 alone.
Head-to-head, Sabalenka and Gauff have an evenly split 5-5 record.
While Gauff earned her US Open title with a Sabalenka defeat, Sabalenka has the recent edge, snagging wins over Gauff in three of the pair's last four meetings — including May's clay battle in the 2025 Madrid Open final.
How to watch the 2025 French Open final
The world's top two tennis players will square off at the 2025 French Open championship match at 9 AM ET on Saturday, airing live on TNT.