2025 Wimbledon - Day 5 Men's and Women's Singles
WOMEN’S SINGLES
Aryna Sabalenka vs. Emma Raducanu
Without looking at the schedule, I can tell you that this one will be on Centre Court. Emma Raducanu put up one of the best performances of her career to take out Marketa Vondrousova in straights, and it sets up this mouthwatering clash. The reigning world no. 1 against the darling of the British tennis media will give The Guardian and Daily Mail headlines for weeks to come, and the rest of the tennis universe is getting pretty pumped as well.
Despite repeatedly alluding to a back injury before and during this tournament, Raducanu seems to be moving pretty well and getting some decent pop on her shots (although I do think she’s pulling her punches slightly). She played a very linear, straightforward game against Vondrousova to cut down Marketa’s use of angles, and she served quite well too. I’m not sure that plan will be as effective against Sabalenka, who is going to force Emma to run all over the court whether she likes it or not.
Like many other individual sports, stylistic advantages exist in tennis in a sort of rock-paper-scissors scheme. Power hitters (Sabalenka) can be undone by creative players who bring a lot of variety to the matchup and throw off their timing (Vondrousova), creative players can be undone by defensive/just plain solid players (Raducanu, in this case) who manage to come up with the correct responses to all of their tricks, and solid players can be undone by power hitters who are able to break through their defenses with a barrage of ball-bashing.
Obviously, this isn’t a hard and fast rule, and player “archetypes” in tennis are really more like a spectrum instead of a discrete set of categories. What it does mean, though (in so many words), is that I think Raducanu is at more of an inherent disadvantage here. In the last round the power hitter outlasted the archetypal solid/defensive player in Marie Bouzkova, so you know she’s feeling her game right now and I don’t think Emma possesses the creativity that Vondrousova used to rattle Sabalenka in Berlin. Sabalenka in 2 is my pick, but then again all of r/tennis (myself included) thought Emma was about to get slaughtered in the last match, so what do I know…
Elise Mertens vs. Elina Svitolina
A battle of two extremely solid baseliners with not much to separate them, but Svitolina has won their last two matches on grass including at Bad Homburg just last week. It was a very close contest (Mertens served for the first set but eventually lost it 7-5), but from what I can see Svitolina is a little more dynamic on the attack and has the slightly better serve. This gives her the edge on grass. Svitolina in 2.
Solana Sierra vs. Cristina Bucsa
Alrighty Solana, you proved me wrong. Serves me right for trying to pretend I know a player’s game by speed-watching a few YouTube highlights. Solana Sierra gained at least one new fan after her second-round match against Katie Boulter; she plays with this frantic energy that’s really entertaining, and her backhand is world-class. I speculated that Sierra’s second serve might be the weak point in the Boulter match, but if anything it was Boulter’s second serve that was the crack in the foundation. Sierra absolutely teed off on a bunch of returns, and although she narrowly lost a first-set tiebreak you could see that Katie was kind of running out of ideas. The second and third sets went to Sierra without much fuss.
Cristina Bucsa is not a name I expected to see in the Wimbledon third round, but I don’t think there’s really anything that could surprise me after the first couple days we’ve had. I didn’t get to see any of her 6-1, 6-3 thrashing of Donna Vekic, but her making 76% of her first serves and Donna giving up 11 break points is pretty telling of her level. Not sure how sustainable that is going into the next round, and Donna can really get down on herself when she falls behind in the scoreline which is pretty encouraging for the other player to see. Sierra should offer more fightback if Bucsa jumps out to an early lead. Sierra in 3.
Laura Siegemund vs. Madison Keys
Siegemund frustrated Fernandez to death, and the lack of VAR technology lent her a helping hand too; at 4-3, 40-30 in the second set, the umpire erroneously called a double bounce on Leylah, which she argued to no avail. Her reward is a third-round matchup against Madison Keys, who dealt with Olga Danilovic pretty efficiently. Danilovic’s groundstrokes are really better-suited for clay, and Keys had plenty of opportunities to tee off on balls that just sat up a bit too high in her strike zone.
This one is going to be a lot tougher for Siegemund to navigate than either of her earlier matches. Unlike Stearns, Keys is dangerous off both wings, and unlike Fernandez, Keys is more than capable of injecting pace into the rally off a completely dead ball so Siegemund won’t be able to reset the point very easily. Laura will surely pull out her entire bag of tricks against Maddie, but she’s bringing a Swiss army knife to a gunfight. Keys in 2.
Kamilla Rakhimova vs. Linda Noskova
Quote from my previous writeup: “[Rakhimova] has never bagged a top-10 win in her career and I’m not sure this is the place to start.” Am I the one jinxing these seeds? What if I’m the problem? Kamilla Rakhimova knocked out the defending finalist in round two, while Noskova shook off some service issues to get past Eva Lys. Noskova’s offense makes her the clear favorite on paper heading into this one, and yet something just seems a little off. She’s been prone to some really weird mid-match dips in form these last few tournaments, and I can’t help but wonder if it will catch up to her here against a very solid opponent. Rakhimova in 3.
Dalma Galfi vs. Amanda Anisimova
Galfi upset Haddad Maia, and unfortunately I did not catch any of this match (nor have I been able to find any footage) so I’m still mostly in the dark about her form. She has a pretty extreme grip on her forehand, but I feel like I’ve pointed that out as a potential weakness like 5 times now in these writeups and every single time the player with the extreme grip ended up winning. Here’s something a little more certain: Anisimova is continuing to roll, and she’s currently sitting in the top 10 in the live rankings with a wide-open path to the semis in front of her. I think some nervous glances are being exchanged between her team as this quarter of the draw continues to collapse. Anisimova in 2.
Diane Parry vs. Sonay Kartal
Diane Parry shocked Shnaider, and I was totally off the mark about her single-hander being able to weather a barrage of cross-court forehands from the lefty. It also helped that she was able to step around so many of them, and 21 winners in 17 games is pretty great. Kartal is scrappy and will have the home crowd on her side, but Parry has shown some amazing variety and I wouldn’t rate Kartal’s offense above Shnaider’s. I think the qualifier run continues here. Parry in 3.
Anastasia Pavyluchenkova vs. Naomi Osaka
Haven’t seen much of either of these two, but I think Osaka’s serve will be the difference here. There are not going to be a lot of rallies in this one so as long as neither is too dinged up fitness should not be a concern. Osaka in 2.
MEN’S SINGLES
Taylor Fritz vs. Alejandro Davidovich Fokina
Fritz is really just getting the worst draws possible here. After barely scraping by GMP in a first-round match that was split up over two days, he managed to eke out a fifth-set win against an inspired Gabriel Diallo. The match ended at nearly midnight in London, and Diallo might have wanted to try pleading his case harder to suspend the match at the start of the fifth and try to servebot his way to a single set on fresher legs the following morning. That’s a very difficult call to make with all the momentum from winning the fourth set, though.
Botic van de Zandschulp, on the other hand, could not avoid playing for a fourth consecutive day, and he fell in four sets to Alejandro Davidovich Fokina. Fritz and ADF met in the Eastbourne semis, with Fritz winning in three sets, and I think ADF’s got his work cut out for him here to try and reverse a similar result. Fritz’s serve and forehand are the two biggest weapons on the court, and ADF may not have time to construct points in such a way that he can exploit Fritz’s relatively slow movement. ADF’s best chance will be to outlast Fritz, but it won’t be a given that Fritz’s legs will go out before the end of the match. Even though he’s had to play two five-setters, I wouldn’t call either of them excessively grueling battles; the Diallo match was 3h01m, and Fritz just had a day off. Fritz in 4 or ADF in 5.
Luciano Darderi vs. Jordan Thompson
This is a battle between two guys I wasn’t really expecting to see here. Luciano Darderi is not really known for his play on grass, but he straight-setted Fery in R2. I didn’t watch the match, but some emotional deceleration from Fery after notching his first tour-level win against Popyrin is not totally unexpected. Meanwhile, a friendly Redditor pasted an excerpt from an Australian news article about the physical shape Jordan Thompson is in, and it ain’t pretty. Supposedly he has already decided to take a “multiple month” break after Wimbledon to allow a variety of injuries to heal, but he somehow managed to pull out a 5-set win against Bonzi despite falling behind 2 sets to 1.
Thompson has the grass-court skillset to beat Darderi when healthy, but there’s really no telling what will happen here given his injury status. Perhaps counter-intuitively, Darderi’s smartest tactic might be to treat this like a clay-court match: drag out the rallies, make Thompson run a lot, see whether he’s willing to stay on court for 4 hours to grind out a win. Not sure how much he’s got left in the tank given he’s already made two 5-set comeback victories. Darderi in 4.
Nuno Borges vs. Karen Khachanov
Nuno Borges blew right past Billy Harris, whereas Khachanov had a titanic struggle against Shintaro Mochizuki. He finally finished him off in 5 sets, but the story of the day was Mochizuki playing his heart out against a much more experienced (and bigger) opponent. Hoping to see a lot more of him in the future as he has a beautiful all-court game that the tour could always use more of.
Borges is apparently more capable on grass than I’m giving him credit for, which makes this next match against Khachanov interesting. Khachanov certainly has the bigger serve and hits bigger from the baseline, but he hasn’t posted particularly great results here in the past and his forehand can break down when he’s rushed because of his huge takeback and extreme Western grip (here we go again). Borges is steadier from the ground, and if he can start getting reads on the Khachanov serve to get returns in play, Karen could be in trouble. IMO the odds swing further into Nuno’s favor the longer the match goes on. Khachanov in 4 or Borges in 5.
Kamil Majchrzak vs. Arthur Rinderknech
Rinderknech needed 5 sets to get past Cristian Garin, and I was worried he might not have anything left in the tank after dropping the 4th set. Kamil Majchrzak is kind of an unknown commodity at this stage in a major, but for a guy who’s suffered a bunch of injuries in his career already I think Rinderknech’s fitness is a big concern by now. I think he’s going to have to sprint to the finish if he wants to win this one. Majchrzak in 4.
Nicolas Jarry vs. Joao Fonseca
Got both of these picks wrong in my last writeup on account of underestimating the offenses of both of these guys. Nico Jarry is, indeed, able to blast his opponents off the court, and that’s exactly what he did against a hapless Learner Tien in a stunning display of serving. He finished the match with an 86% winrate on his first serve, making 81% of his first serves, without facing a single break point.
Joao Fonseca was tested extensively by Jenson Brooksby, whose net game has improved a lot since I last saw him, but his offense held up and he hit 51 winners in a four-set win. Nico Jarry poses an entirely different challenge for Joao: how well will his defense hold up against one of the biggest servers on tour? If Jarry makes 80% of his first serves again this will be extremely difficult no matter what, but if he comes back down to earth I think Joao can weather the storm. He very nearly beat Fritz in Eastbourne which is an even faster grass court than Wimbledon, and I think it’s about time I give Fonseca some credit. Fonseca in 5.
Mattia Bellucci vs. Cameron Norrie
Bellucci’s shotmaking is awesome, and he piled up 36 winners in a surprising straight-sets victory over Lehecka. He faces another lefty here in Norrie, who beat Tiafoe (Frances was really struggling on return). Bellucci has won their only meeting in the Monte-Carlo qualies earlier this year, which suggests to me that he’s comfortable with his unorthodox groundstrokes. He hasn’t had to play a lot of tennis so far either. I think he takes this. Bellucci in 4.
Andrey Rublev vs. Adrian Mannarino
Mannarino blinked against Royer and dropped the third set, but he closed the match out in 4 which was pretty critical because I don’t know if he had the legs for a fifth. Rublev and Harris turned into a servers’ battle, and Rublev’s 3 converted BPs compared to Harris’s 1 basically ended up being the difference.
This matchup is really interesting. Mannarino has the exact kind of game that could give Rublev fits if he’s even a little bit off. He also could just get blown off the court if he decides not to dig in when falling behind early, or Rublev could try to grind him down and wear out his legs if he feels like he starts misfiring. Basically, there are a couple ways for Rublev to get past Mannarino here, but it kind of depends on his mentality, and that’s really hard to predict. An upset? Sure, why not. Mannarino in 4.
Jan-Lennard Struff vs. Carlos Alcaraz
I love Felix, but honestly, a new fan would not guess he made the quarterfinals here 4 years ago. He’s struggling with the bounces, he’s struggling with his footing, he’s struggling to return serve. Jan-Lennard Struff came up with an excellent attacking performance to win both sets after resumption of play on Thursday, and his high-risk game is very well-suited for these grass courts.
Carlos Alcaraz had a much easier time against Oliver Tarvet than his opener against Fognini, but I think this one will be close. Each of these guys’ three previous matches was an absolute battle, and although Alcaraz won all of them Struff made things very close and they were on clay where Struff’s serve-and-volley is marginally less effective. Alcaraz can really struggle with consistency if he feels rushed, and several lower-ranked players have tried all-out aggression (with varying degrees of success) as a tactic to disrupt his usual otherworldly shotmaking.
Honestly, I would give Struff much better odds if this was BO3, but for Alcaraz to lose he would need to turn in a supremely poor performance and Struff would have to serve the lights out for over 2 hours. I think Struff goes all-out and appears upset-worthy for about a set and a half before Alcaraz gets a read on his serve and turns it around. Alcaraz in 4.