Wimbledon 2026: Jannik Sinner vs. the heat, Serena Williams’ return and Novak Djokovic’s best last chance for history

It’s a somewhat chaotic time in tennis as we reach Wimbledon 2026. Seven different male and female players have won the last eight Grand Slam tournaments and the only one who’s won multiple titles, Carlos Alcaraz, is still out with a wrist injury. None of the others have won a grass title this year.

And that’s to say nothing of the GOATs in the field.

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With Tennis in an English Garden™ set to begin this weekend, let’s go through the biggest of the many questions in the field, starting with a player who hopes to repeat what happened at last year’s Wimbledon … and not what happened at last month’s Grand Slam.

Jannik Sinner will probably be hearing about the 2026 French Open for the rest of his life, even if does complete the career Grand Slam. A Rafael Nadal-level favorite to capture his last remaining major title, Sinner instead succumbed to what has been the greatest rival of his career, alongside Alcaraz: a hot day.

Sinner cramping his way to blowing a two-set, three-break lead against Juan Manuel Cerundolo at an Alcaraz-free Roland-Garros will go down as one of the biggest upsets in tennis history. And would you look at that, we could see even more hot weather at Wimbledon, where it was so hot during qualifying earlier this week, there was a power outage.

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The Parisian fiasco made clear just how bad the cramping issue can get for Sinner, who hasn’t won a Grand Slam title since last year’s Wimbledon (even if he’s doing unprecedented stuff in other tournaments). We can only hope he’s figured something out in the weeks since, a span of time in which he hasn’t played a single match.

The sportsbooks certainly seem optimistic. Sinner is currently a -175 favorite to repeat in London, which are shorter odds than Roger Federer was facing before all but two of his record seven Wimbledon titles.

Just how back is Serena Williams?

The return of Serena Williams, in both singles and doubles, is another chance for the tennis world to experience one of its greatest players ever.

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It just remains to be seen if the 44-year-old Williams is a feel-good story or anything resembling a contender. It has been seven years since her last Wimbledon singles final, and a full decade since her last title. Here’s how long it’s been since she’s played: she hasn’t played any of the 127 other women in the singles draw at Wimbledon.

She will start this tournament by facing a player who is half her age, born when she was already a seven-time Grand Slam champion.

There’s really no predicting how this will go. Williams fans should just count themselves fortunate for another chance to see her play again, especially alongside her sister Venus in doubles.

It should be said that Williams doesn’t have much to prove. Yes, she is one Grand Slam short of Margaret Court’s 24 for the all-time women’s singles record, but it really needs to be noted that Court a) won 13 of those titles before the Open Era, when professional players were finally allowed to play Grand Slams and b) won 11 of those titles at the Australian Open, at a time when the field was predominantly other Australians because the rest of the world’s top players didn’t want to make the trip halfway around the world.

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Williams matching Court would be an incredible achievement, especially now given the circumstances. For all intents and purposes, though, she should already be considered the record holder as the winningest player of the Open Era.

Is this Novak Djokovic’s last real chance for 25?

Speaking of players with an ungodly amount of Grand Slam singles titles, it’s time to talk about a certain Serbian.

It has been nearly three years since Novak Djokovic’s last Grand Slam title. It has been nearly three years since his last Masters 1000 title. The only three titles he’s won in that span are two 250s and a cathartic Olympics. He has won three matches total since Indian Wells in early March, none in straight sets. He hasn’t been the ATP No. 1 since June 2024, and he will almost certainly never reach that level again given his volume of play. It’s honestly an achievement that he’s ranked even No. 7 in the world.

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We apologize if all of that sounds harsh, but it throws into stark relief another fact: this could be Djokovic’s last real chance to win an unprecedented 25th Grand Slam.

Breaking through a healthy Sinner or Alcaraz is difficult. Breaking through both of them is borderline impossible, as Djokovic learned in Melbourne this year when he took down Sinner in the Australian Open semifinal, then fell to Alcaraz.

Djokovic is 39 years old, and his biggest obstacles are a 23- and 24-year-old. He might not get another chance to enter a major with one of them sidelined and one of them facing legitimate questions on how to handle a 90-degree day. He’s already losing to the Joao Fonsecas of the world, and we have no reason to believe this will be any better when he’s 40.

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Is that actually Iga Swiatek?

For all the questions facing Sinner, he’s a mortal lock compared to the other defending singles champion.

Swiatek’s triumph at Wimbledon last year feels very long ago. The former world No. 1, who built her dominance on athleticism and precision, has looked out of sync for months. She has beaten a single top 10 player in 2026: Jessica Pegula on clay, the American’s worst surface and the Pole’s best.

And yet, it certainly feels possible she could win Wimbledon in a wide-open field. She has looked a bit better since bringing on Francisco Roig, her idol Rafael Nadal’s former assistant coach, but she also suffered a first-round loss at Bad Homburg, her only grass event.

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It feels impossible that Swiatek has already played her best tennis at 25 years old. She has a very good chance to show that might not be the case in London.

Is this the moment for Taylor Fritz or Ben Shelton?

This has so far been an exercise in analyzing slumping elites, so let’s talk about some players with actual momentum.

Finally freed from clay season, the big-serving American pair of Taylor Fritz and Ben Shelton have gone a combined 10-1 on grass when not counting their matches against each other. The only loss in that group was Fritz falling to Frances Tiafoe, another American, in Halle.

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Both men are top 10 players playing on the surface most conducive to their best shot. Fritz made the Wimbledon semifinal last year, one of only two major semifinals in his career, while Shelton just re-entered the top five after notching his first grass title in Stuttgart, beating Fritz in the final.

It has been 23 years since Andy Roddick’s US Open title, the last time an American man won a Grand Slam. There have been some strong Americans since then, but it’s hard to think of a tournament with multiple players that warrants such a level of optimism.

What about Aryna Sabalenka and Elena Rybakina?

Back to the slumping elites. The WTA Nos. 1 and 2 accomplished little during clay season, and grass season, which should be a bit more friendly to their ball-striking, was not much better.

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Rybakina, the 2022 Wimbledon champion, won exactly one match between the Queen’s Club and Berlin, while Sabalenka played only Berlin and lost in the semifinal to Pegula. It’s been months since Rybakina won the Australian Open or Sabalenka won the sunshine double.

And yet, Sabalenka is the current betting favorite at +200 odds, and Rybakina is tied for third-best at +600. Rybakina is tied with Coco Gauff, who has lost her past four matches on grass. That’s how open this field is.

Can Alexander Zverev break through Taylor Fritz?

Fritz is in the odd situation where his first-round match might end up being more intimidating than his quarterfinals match, assuming everything goes chalk.

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For his first match, he will face Jack Draper, a former ATP top-five player making his return from injury in front of his home crowd. That’s about as dangerous as it gets for top-10 players in the first round.

For the quarterfinals, Fritz is in the same neighborhood of the bracket as Alexander Zverev, who has been basking in the aftermath of his first Grand Slam title. The ATP No. 3 should not be taken lightly, but he has also dropped his past seven matchups against Fritz, including at the semifinal in Halle.

If Zverev can either avoid Fritz or break through him, he’s in a fairly decent spot with Sinner, his other Kryptonite, and Djokovic on the other side of the draw.

Can Jessica Pegula finally get that Grand Slam?

We’ve already seen one longtime top-10 player win their first Grand Slam title this year. Pegula will be hoping to make it a second at age 32.

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The American has never reached past the quarterfinal at Wimbledon, but reached the final in Berlin last weekend while defeating Sabalenka and another Grand Slam champ in her friend Madison Keys. That qualifies as momentum in this environment.

Will we see anything from the Brits?

We’ve already addressed Draper’s first-round matchup, but he really is one of the more interesting players in this draw. The left-handed London native looks talented enough to win a Grand Slam, but health simply hasn’t been on his side.

This week, he played his first tournament in two months at Eastbourne, where he fell in the semifinal to Ugo Humbert. He has also been working with countryman and two-time Wimbledon champion Andy Murray, which ain’t nothing.

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As for the women’s side, the top-ranked Brit is No. 30 seed Emma Raducanu, who recently reached only her second WTA final since that miracle US Open run in 2021. After years of struggle, Raducanu reunited with former coach Andrew Richardson and looked like a new player at Queen’s Club, one well-equipped for grass.