A few weeks ago, at the 2025 French Open, all of the top eight species of women’s draw reached rounds of 16. Five of the eight have already reached the two Grand Slam finals. A classic from Aryna Sabalenka and ultimate champion Coco Gauff.
This was an overwhelming show of top-level star power on the female side. It was the first time that the top eight species have reached at least a fourth round of slums since Australia’s opening in 2005. Comparison with mid-2005 is probably free. The top eight seeds of Aussie Field in 2005 include Selena Williams, Venus Williams, Maria Sharapova, Lindsey Davenport and Amerimazemo, and ultimately included 43 slam titles, 73 final appearances and a 198 quarterfinals. The WTA star power was off the charts during that period, with France’s open field in 2025 matching it up close.
Three days after Wimbledon 2025, the tournament is unfolding in a completely different way. Four of the Top Nine Seeds – No. 2 Gauff, No. 3 Pegula, No. 5Zheng Qinwen (2024 Olympic gold medalist) and No. 9 Paula Badosa (2025 Australian Open semifinalist) all fell into the opening round. Wimbledon has been a random outcome generator on the part of a woman for a while, and obviously, the record heat in London has become even wilder than usual.
The depth and the power of the stars are the presence of the eye of the eye. If a top-ranked player can lose to a large number of light heavyweights or runs, that means that the depth is dynamite, meaning that the elite is not elite enough. You can see anything you want to see.
In the past few weeks alone, the Women’s Tour has given us both an epic show of star power in one slam and an epic early parity display in another slam. And despite the first round of confusion, the slate in the second round of the women’s draw still features appetizing matchups. It feels like the women’s tour has been in a better shape for a long time.
Star power and depth from top to bottom
Greatness is certainly a subjective concept, but we can agree that perhaps Hall of Fame Induction is a rather good measure of it. And now, at least three players close to the top of the women’s rankings are moving very far towards future guiding.
World No. 1 Sabalenka has reached 11 semi-finals in the past 14 slams, reaching the finals for the third consecutive time. She has won three slams and nine WTA 1000 level tournaments in 20 career titles. It’s objectively great and almost certainly a Hall of Fame resume.
Iga Swiatek, who ranked 4th, has five SLAM titles and ten levels at age 24. Before she was defeated by Sabalenka at this year’s French Open, she matched the Rafael Garros title at a certain age. 125 career weeks at No. 1 are already sixth in history, tracking only Steffi Graf, Martina Navratilova, Serena Williams, Chris Evert and Martina Hingis. And now she’s just typing what’s commonly recognized as her athletic prime.
Coco Gauff is only 21, but has won two slams (one of a total of 10 tour titles) in five SLAM semi-final berths. She was always 6-5 against Sabalenka and after a start-up against Swiatek, she won three times in a row with her, all in straight sets. “Do this and you’re in the Hall of Fame” The criteria list is not clear, but it’s clear that she’s going well in the middle of her. If she retires todayshe may have a chance.
If you accept the assumption that “Future Hall of Famer” is a pretty good indicator of greatness, then think about all the players who have won one with one of these three undeniable greats. Just Tuesday, Gauff not only lost to Dayana Yasutermska, but also lost in the straight set. Yasutermska ranks 21st in the world, reaching the Australian Open semi-finals in 2024, and currently has five matches with players ranked seventh or higher. Thanks to a winter streak, she entered an unseeded tournament and ranked 42nd in the world. But she only allowed one breakpoint to Gauff, one of the world’s great returnees.
Meanwhile, Jelena Ostapenko has a slam title, 6-0 against Swiatek, defeating Sabalenka in a straight set with Stuttgart. She is ranked only 21st in the world. Two-time SLAM finalist (and one-time champion) Elena Rybakina is 4-5 against Swiatek and has won four of her past seven against Sabalenka. She is in 11th place. Pegra has always been 11-15 against this trio of greats, more consistent weekly than Ostapenko and Rivakina, but passed the quarterfinals in just one slam. Paolini wiped out the Goufs in two straight sets this spring, reaching the finals in two slams last year, but not past the fourth round in his first slam since Wimbledon 2024.
So many women show such major advantages at this point, it is not enough to simply show some and not maintain them. You need to deliver weekly.
Donna Vekic made Wimbledon Samis last year and won silver at the 2024 Parisio Games, but is only 25th in the WTA rankings. Four-time SLAM champion Naomi Osaka has been a solid 7-11 7-11 against the WTA top 20 since returning from maternity leave in early 2024, but is currently in 53rd place. 2019 US Open champion Bianca Andreesque has returned from various injuries this spring, beating both Rivakina and Bekic, but this year it was 8-8 and now ranked 146th, dropping out of Wimbledon qualification.
Another way to think about depth is: To achieve this, multiple generations are required to produce talent for star quality at the same time. The WTA definitely has it.
Using a result-based ELO rating for tennis abstraction, there are three different age groups (23 and nunders (Gauff, Andreeva, Zheng), players aged 24-28 (Sabalenka, Swiatek, Rybakina), and players over 29 (Pegura, Paolini, Keys) each of three best players. Each category has at least eight of the top 30. Gauff, Andreeva, Amanda Anisimova (just broken the top 10 WTA for the first time), Emma Raducanu, and others represent the youths of the team, but all tournament fields still have past slum breakthroughs (currently 44th), Anastasia There are past breakthroughs for pavhe (currently 44th). Daniel Collins (54th), Maria Saccari (77th), Victoria Azarenka (87th) – and like Paolini, Keys and Vekic who have found new gear within the past year.
It is almost impossible to win with anything other than your top form right now. The bar was high enough, with one slam title, five slam finals, seven semi-humans and 15 quarterfinals in June’s herbivore tournament at Berlin, Yabul, Sakkari, Sofiakenin, Anna Karinskaya and Aziratum Janovic all coming from one slam title, five slam finals, seven semi-humans and 15 quarterfinals. Qualifications draw. And then, Kenin was the only one who got the main draw.
Loaded 2nd round
It may be much more difficult for the stars to maintain the stars at this point, but their losses are our profits. Without what appears to be the main headliner for Zheng vs. Osaka, the second round of Wimbledon included killer matchups such as Osaka vs. Katerina Siniakova, Ashlyn Krueger vs. Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, and in particular Emmaraducanu vs. Marketa Vondrousova.
Clara Towson vs. Anna Karinkaya. Karinskaya fights contradictions from time to time, but she beats both Pegra and Key this year. She will score a shot on another rising young man in 22nd and 22-year-old Towson, who beat Sabalenka in Dubai in February.
Haley Baptist vs. Victoria Mboko. The 18-year-old Mboko was a huge success at a low level in the sport and entered the top 100 after upsetting No. 25 Magdalena Fleck as a lucky loser in the first round. Baptist, on the other hand, has one of the biggest games on the tour. She served 60% of the time this year, reaching 38 winners in her first round victory against veteran Solana Silstea.
He also had the fourth time playing Swaiteku against Paolini vs. Anishimova, or Collins vs. Rivakina, in addition to Daniel Collins and defending champion Barbora Klezikova, who will face Emma Navaro in the third round. Take out a lot of stars.
Finally, headline slot
The matchups were very impressive, one of them, Raducanu vs. Vondrousova, was marked as the prime time headliner for Centre Court on Wednesday. This was the first women’s match in that slot in this tournament, and came after the set of the tragic tale at the French Open. There, despite all the star power and chokes on the women’s side, the Philip Chatoria night session went to each male match for the first 11 nights of the tournament before the semi-finals.
Players such as Yabour noticed the ongoing gap, and well-known coach Patrick Mouratoglu stepped into the hot water in a statement defending the tournament organizers (a statement found in a long LinkedIn post).
“The night session is a single match,” he said at one point. “If it finishes in less than an hour (for example, one player won 6-1 6-1), the fans will be disappointed. It’s not about gender. It’s about periods, it’s format.
That’s a real point technically, but the slam itself has decided to make the men’s match a best of five and a three-man match. Women can play longer matches. It’s not incredible logic to mandate men to play longer matches and give them a headline spot to play longer matches. (In addition, five of Paris’ 11 men’s headliners took place in three sets, with four continuing under 2:15.)
Regardless of the controversy, the women’s tour has become increasingly exciting to follow, and even in this week’s stunning round, this will be a fascinating two weeks.
