Wimbledon qualifying joy and pain for grand slam winners and rising stars
In the middle of a cool Thursday afternoon in Roehampton, as a tense five-set tussle finally reached its conclusion, a long scream pierced the summer air at the Bank of England Sports Ground.
Kimmer Coppejans, a 29-year-old Belgian ranked 187th, had recovered from a two sets to one deficit to pull off a hard-fought five set victory against Taro Daniel. After his opponent’s final unforced error, Coppejans fell to the ground.
Coppejans’s joy was mirrored throughout the final day of Wimbledon’s qualifying rounds, one of the most emotionally charged occasions on the tennis calendar. The players are forced to reckon with jubilation or misery as some reach the Wimbledon main draw, earning a minimum of £55,000, while others fail at the final hurdle.
Those emotions are only compounded by the surroundings in Roehampton, which are a world away from Wimbledon itself, a venue situated in a vast field partitioned into tennis courts nearly four miles from the All England Club.
“I’ve never been to the main site and I actually thought about it during the match, to be there,” says the 16-year-old Mirra Andreeva, after winning her final qualifying round.
This year, however, has seen significant changes. It remains in the same venue, with players surrounded by temporary structures and Portakabins. But the facilities, once branded “terrible” by Ernests Gulbis, have undergone significant changes.
A grassy slope that spectators would settle on was once the closest thing to a stadium court, but the main court in Roehampton is now surrounded by temporary stands. A Wimbledon merchandise shop and food stands were also erected in addition to a big screen with various seating.
“They obviously changed a lot of the place,” says Sofia Kenin. “It made it actually nice. It felt really nice and cosy. Of course it is nice to play at Wimbledon but everything was done really well here. I played on good courts, the crowd was there, everything felt like Wimbledon.” The changes are reflected in the price of entry. Despite its flaws, Wimbledon qualifying was once free to enter, a glorious hidden gem for diehard fans that few others seemed to know about. This year, the cost of entry rose to £15.
The presence of Andreeva and Kenin underlined the varied profile of players who find themselves in Roehampton battling for their right to compete at Wimbledon. Andreeva’s rise has been a significant story of the year, with the Russian reaching the third round of the French Open from qualifying last month and putting herself within touching distance of thetop 100.
Due to the age eligibility rule, which limits the number of tournaments a player can contest before the age of 18, Andreeva has not played since Paris. She would have likely been a top candidate for a main draw wildcard under normal circumstances, but Wimbledon’s ban of Russian players last year ensured that she would not receive one.
Andreeva’s youth and the ban on Russian players last year meant that she took her very first steps on grass just days before she began her qualifying campaign. “In the first practice, I fell like three times. In every match, I slide a lot. It’s a little bit dangerous – you need to move, not slowly, but with little steps. But so far it’s good, as we can see. I like the grass so maybe if I do good here it can be one of my favourite surfaces.” As Andreeva battled to reach the Wimbledon main draw for the first time, on the court across from her, Coco Vandeweghe, a former top 10 player, toiled to find her way back to the site of a tournament where she has made the quarter-finals twice, before she eventually lost.
The fall of her countrywoman, Kenin, has been even more abrupt. Three years ago in 2020, Kenin won the Australian Open title, reached the French Open final after the Covid-enforced hiatus later that year and was named WTA player of the year. Instead of maintaining her status, Kenin suffered from numerous injuries and struggled with turmoil around her team. After multiple lengthy breaks and losing streaks, she fell out of the WTA rankings.
This week, the 24-year-old found herself back at Roehampton for the first time in six years, now ranked 126th. After losing in the first qualifying round of the French Open, though, Kenin struggled through three matches, including a tough final battle against Taylor Townsend, to reach the main draw where she will face Coco Gauff, the seventh seed, in the first round.
“It was very hectic, a lot of people from outside coming in, trying to, in a way, taking advantage,” she says. “I tried to learn that I have the people around me that I trust, and try to keep the noise away. Try to do what I do, one step at a time, practise, fitness, diet everything. Now it’s a bit more quiet but obviously I want to get back to the top. Obviously, it’s baby steps right now.”
Alongside familiar faces in Roehampton were rank-and-file just trying to break through. Gijs Brouwer, a 27year-old Dutchman, reached the Wimbledon main draw for the first time. A tall lefty with a forceful game, he had spent his entire career outside of the top 200 just trying to make ends meet and realise the potential he believed he had.
“I’ve been stuck in challenges and futures for five, six years,” he said. “The last year I made a breakthrough but in the end it’s all worth it. But there were doubts.”
Wimbledon’s qualifying round ended late on Thursday afternoon as Hsieh Su-Wei and Lucrezia Stefanini battled for the final spot for nearly three hours. Hsieh, a former No 23 and fan favourite due to her genius hands and unorthodox court craft, is on the comeback trail after a self-imposed 18month sabbatical.
Now ranked 954, she is charged with starting from the beginning and rebuilding her ranking at the age of 37. In her second singles event back, she just fell short in a final-set match tiebreak after holding match point, but the large crowd that stayed to watch left with a better understanding of what it means for an athlete to adore the sport they play.