Of all the upsets that have occurred at Wimbledon thus, there are a few standouts.
After all, Andrey Rublev’s meltdown marked a tough watch as the Russian once again imploded, whilst elsewhere there were seeded exits for Nicolas Jarry and Sebastian Baez, to name just a few.
There is always bound to be a few upsets on the cards, and with the qualifiers performing so admirably, that chance has intensified this year.
However, nobody ever expects the defending champion to fall to such an early defeat…
John McEnroe reacts to Marketa Vondrousova’s Wimbledon exit
Speaking live on BBC Sport just yesterday after the defending Wimbledon champion was dumped out in the first round, John McEnroe pulled no punches in his assessment of Marketa Vondrousova.
However, the bulk of his frustration was not directed straight at the player herself, but instead her comments in the build-up to the tournament.
She claimed: ‘I don’t think of myself as a Wimbledon champion.
The American, who won the event three times as a player, was dumbfounded: ‘To say that is hugely disappointing would be an understatement.
‘Two days ago I’m reading the paper and Vondrousova said something like ‘I don’t feel like a Wimbledon champion’. You don’t feel like a Wimbledon champion, that just seems like a very weird attitude to take on to the court.
‘I understand she has been struggling with injury, I don’t know how much that affected her, but she went out very meekly. That was hard to watch.’
The American has not been solely negative though, with McEnroe predicting one ‘incredible’ player to win Wimbledon.
How often has the defending Wimbledon champion exit in the first round?
Having lost in the first round, Vondrousova broke an unwanted record. She became the first defending women’s champion since Steffi Graf in 1994 to lose in her first match after winning the title.
Usually, if you break a Graf record, it usually means you have done something right.
After all, the German was a legendary figure within tennis, and very often got it wrong.
However, her Wimbledon disappointment nearly three decades ago marked an outstanding one, and the 25-year-old has become only the fourth player to ever make such a gaffe.
One of those other two came all the way back in 1967, as surprise champion Manuel Santana lost in the first round of his title defence, whilst the other came in 2003 as Lleyton Hewitt lost to Ivo Karlovic.
What made this latter example even more shocking was that this was the Croatian’s first-ever main draw match at a Grand Slam, and at the time was ranked outside the top 200.
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