ANALYSIS: Women's Winners and Losers from 2024 Wimbledon including Krejcikova, Raducanu, Paolini and Swiatek

The Wimbledon Championships, one of the most prestigious events in the tennis season, concluded two days ago, and the dust has settled. We’re now capable of analyzing how the event shaped up and which players were the biggest winners and the biggest losers after it. It was a very interesting event, quite in line with the recent Wimbledon tradition of being expectedly unexpected.

Tennis fans had their favourites, bookies had their favourites but after competing well for a fortnight Barbora Krejcikova was crowned the event champion. That’s where our story begins.

Being a two-time Grand Slam champion is quite significant because there simply aren’t many active players who have done it. For instance, Iga Swiatek, Naomi Osaka, Aryna Sabalenka, Angelique Kerber have all won 2 or more Grand Slams. Some players, like Emma Raducanu and Coco Gauff, have won only one, and even legendary players and future Hall of Famers like Caroline Wozniacki have won only one.

That’s why it’s significant: It’s a major boost to your legacy, and Krejcikova is building a great one. A sensational doubles player turned amazing singles player is not a journey you’ll see often but it’s happening here. She competed well and won the trophy against all odds

Jasmine Paolini is undoubtedly on track to win the Most Improved Player award at the WTA awards later this year. This award is given to a player who has shown significant improvement in their performance compared to the previous year. Her journey in 2024 has been astonishing because we’re talking about a player whose career high in wins before this year was 43 last year, and she’s up to 30 at the halfway point of the season.

That personal best will be shattered, much like her career-high ranking, which has been improved to world number 5. This Wimbledon run proved that her performances earlier this year weren’t a fluke but simply a reality. Yes, the draw was depleted, and yes, she’s gotten quite lucky at times this year, but nobody can question a player who just won more matches in two weeks on grass than up until that point in her career. She is a deserved Top 10 player.

Donna Vekic might have ended her Wimbledon with a hugely disappointing loss to Jasmine Paolini, but the Croatian elevated herself from irrelevancy to relevance. A once-promising talent whose career was derailed by injuries, Vekic is on the cusp of returning to the Top 20 once more. Her peak is at 19, and she’s currently ranked 21st, so she’s very close to her career-best ranking, and it’s well deserved.

The performance at Wimbledon warrants a lot of optimism moving forward as she’s undoubtedly one player to watch out for during the US Open run. If she can remain healthy, we might look at the 28-year-old finally fulfilling the promise of being a Top 10 regular.

Lulu Sun is the breakout star of the 2024 Wimbledon largely because we’re talking about a qualifier who made her way to the quarter-final. The New Zealander was ranked 123rd before this year’s Wimbledon, where she had to play the qualifiers.

After winning three singles matches there, she went on to play amazing tennis, beating players like Qinwen Zheng and Emma Raducanu before losing in the quarter-final. That pushed her up to 53rd in the rankings, which will give her easier draws. Time will tell whether it was a one-hit wonder or not, but at 21, Sun has a lot of time to prove herself.

Elena Rybakina was widely expected to win the trophy at this year’s Wimbledon, especially after some big names crashed out, but she failed to do so. So why is she a winner? Well, it’s mostly because her grass prep wasn’t very good. She dealt with an illness in Berlin that prevented her from playing in Eastbourne as well.

Despite all of that, the Kazakh produced a stunning effort to make the semi-final, coming one set away from yet another final. She didn’t win the trophy but will leave London fairly confident in her level after a lot of uncertainty in the weeks before. Her health remains the biggest obstacle for now and not tennis.

Everybody, including Marketa Vondrousova herself, was stunned when she won the trophy last year. It was unexpected, and few truly believed that she could do it again. Even so, the way she lost in the first round to a player who predominantly plays on clay leaves a lot to be desired.

She hasn’t played very strong tennis recently, and we’re talking about a player who played at the WTA Finals last year. Round one exit is simply indefensible.

Emma Raducanu struck a very careful tone during her Wimbledon performances, but her level was certainly great at the start. She started really well, smoking a couple of players, and many got excited about a potentially deep run by the Brit.

Then she ran into an inspired Lulu Sun and got beaten in three sets. It was a good showing overall but not what it could have been, and that’s why many were left a bit underwhelmed by what transpired.

Many touted Coco Gauff as a dark horse to go far at Wimbledon, and it made sense. Her game has certainly improved in the past year, and depending on how well she served, the American could have gone far. She looked really great at the start but then ran into a very smart player who exploited an old weakness—the forehand.

Emma Navarro openly admitted after the match that she was going after Gauff’s forehand, and when players speak like that about your game, you have a problem to solve. Unfortunately, it’s been a problem she’s had for a while, and it’s not yet been solved, which is problematic as it keeps costing her matches.

Ons Jabeur reached the Wimbledon final in 2022 and 2023. However, that trend didn’t continue this year, as Elina Svitolina beat the Tunisian in two sets. Her tennis has been a bit wonky the entire year, and it was evident at Wimbledon that things weren’t fine either.

The Tunisian had two golden chances to win Wimbledon in the previous two years, and with the way her career has trended recently and the way her tennis has looked, Wimbledon might end up being nothing more than a distant dream.

Iga Swiatek isn’t a great grass player, but many assumed she would have at least built upon last year’s quarter-final sowing. It didn’t quite happen that way, as Yulia Putintseva beat her in a bizarre match. She won the opening set but collapsed in the next two.

Not winning Wimbledon is not the end of the world for Swiatek, but with the way the draw looked and the way some of the other favourites lost, it does seem like a missed opportunity for the Polish player. It was a minor loss, one she’ll likely rectify at the upcoming Olympics but a loss nonetheless.

There you have it. Our winners and losers of the recently concluded Wimbledon Championships. Let us know what you think about it in the comments.