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The 2022 Wimbledon Championships wrapped up with top seed Novak Djokovic winning his seventh Gentlemen's Singles title and Elena Rybakina winning her first Ladies' Singles title. This was the first edition of Wimbledon since the introduction of the ATP rankings where the top-two ranked players in the world did not participate in the event.
Roger Federer, an eight-time champion at Wimbledon, missed the event for the first time since 1998. Matteo Berrettini, Marin Cilic and Roberto Bautista Agut were three seeded players who had to withdraw from the event due to a positive COVID test.
Nick Kyrgios became the third player to reach the finals of a Slam after receiving a walkover in the semis. He also became the first unseeded man to reach the finals of a Slam since Jo-Wilfried Tsonga at the 2008 Australian Open.
On the women's side, Ons Jabeur became the first Arab woman and the first from North Africa to make the finals of a Major. Eventual champion Elena Rybakina became the first Kazakh player to win a Slam.
The final between Jabeur and Rybakina was the first one since 2009 where both Wimbledon finalists were non-Europeans. World No.1 Iga Swiatek's 37-match winning streak came to an end as she was defeated by Alize Cornet in the third round.
The increase in competitiveness levels on both the men's and women's sides has made it difficult for players to perform at a consistent level. However, given the fact that some of the seeded players won grass-court titles in their build-up to 2022 Wimbledon and have been past champions of the event, they have surely punched below their weight this year.
We take a look at five players from the men's and women's singles draw for whom the 135th edition of Wimbledon didn't go as planned.
#1 Stefanos Tsitsipas
Stefanos Tsitsipas was the fourth seed at the 2022 Wimbledon Championships. The Greek entered the third Slam of the year as the player with the most match wins of the season.
His build-up to Wimbledon started with a quarterfinals finish at Stuttgart, followed by a second-round defeat to Nick Kyrgios in the second round at Queen's. A week before Wimbledon, he entered the Mallorca Open as the second seed and won his ninth career title by defeating Roberto Bautista Agut in the final.
At Wimbledon, the Greek overcame a tricky challenge as he won against qualifier Alexander Ritschard in the first round in four sets. He later backed up his win with a straight-sets win against Jordan Thompson in the second round to set up a clash with Kyrgios in the third round.
Seeking revenge for his Queen's loss, Tsitsipas took the first set in a tiebreak. However, in a highly dramatic contest, Kyrgios won the match by taking the next three sets. The match concluded on-court, but a war of words ensued off-court.
#2 Felix Auger-Aliassime
A semifinalist at ’s-Hertogenbosch, a quarterfinalist at Halle and a win against Rafael Nadal at the Hurlingham Classic meant that Felix Auger-Aliassime, seeded sixth, was expected to make a deep run at Wimbledon.
Facing 2022 Eastbourne runner-up Maxime Cressy in the first round, Auger-Aliassime took the first set in a tiebreak. However, the World No. 41 American fought back and took the next three sets to triumph 6(5)-7, 6-4, 7-6(9), 7-6(5) in four hours and fourteen minutes.
It was the fourth instance since the 2021 Australian Open that Auger-Aliassime lost a Slam match after winning the opening set.
"The reality is I lost today, and there is nothing I can do anymore, even though of course I had higher ambitions for this tournament. But in order to one day win a tournament like this, I need to be able to beat players like today and many different players along the way," Auger-Aliassime said after his defeat to Maxime Cressy.
#3 Karolina Pliskova
2021 Wimbledon runner-up Karolina Pliskova hasn't been in her best form this year. She began her grasscourt campaign this season in Berlin, where she lost to Coco Gauff in the quarterfinals. The following week, she lost to home favorite Katie Boulter 1-6, 6-4, 6-4 in the first round.
Seeded sixth at Wimbledon, Pliskova won her first-round match 7-6(1), 7-5 against Czech Republic's Tereza Martincova and took on Boulter in the next round.
The Brit dropped the opening set but stormed back to defeat the Czech 3-6, 7-6(4), 6-4.
#4 Beatriz Haddad Maia
Beatriz Haddad Maia was ranked well outside the Top 140 before the grass season started. The Brazilian started her campaign in Nottingham, where she beat the likes of Maria Sakkari and Alison Riske en route to the title.
The following week, she won the Birmingham title after a mid-match retirement from Shuai Zhang in the final. Maia entered Eastbourne on a 10-match winning streak and made her third tour-level semifinal in as many weeks, but lost to Petra Kvitova in straight sets.
She rose to World No. 28 before Wimbledon, where she was seeded 23rd. She was up against Kaja Juvan in the first round, and in their first tour-level main draw meeting, Juvan upset Maria in three sets.
#5 Hubert Hurkacz
Hubert Hurkacz made the Wimbledon semis last year after defeating eight-time champion Roger Federer in the quarterfinals. The Pole kickstarted his 2022 grass swing with a first-round loss to Marton Fucsovics at Stuttgart. He entered Halle next, where he won the title by defeating the likes of Kyrgios, Auger-Aliassime and World No.1 Daniil Medvedev.
Hurkacz faced Queen's club quarterfinalist Alexander Davidovich Fokina in the first round at SW19. In their first grasscourt meeting, Davidovich Fokina took the first two sets before Hurkacz fought back by taking the next two.
In the deciding set, Hurkacz was serving for the match at 5-4. However, the Spaniard broke back and took the contest to a final set tiebreak, where both players struggled to hold on to their serve.
Hurkacz was leading 7-4 in the tiebreak but Davidovich Fokina won the next five points before converting his second match point to win the three-hour and 34-minute contest 7-6(4), 6-4, 5-7, 2-6, 7-6(8).
