The Baseline Awards: The Wildest Tournament

WATCH: The steadier Djokovic that came through in four sets against Kyrgios for his seventh Wimbledon crown

With grass having become such a specialized surface that’s rewarded players who have mastered its every nuance, there have been few surprises over the years at the sport’s most prestigious tournament, Wimbledon.

This year, conventional thought went by the wayside, with twists and turns on and off the turf.

Well before the first ball was struck, the All England Club made a statement on the global political front by banning Russian and Belarussian players from competing after the invasion of Ukraine. That prompted a response from tennis’ governing bodies—the ATP, the WTA and the ITF—to strip the tournament of ranking points.

Despite the controversy, the tournament went on, with the singles fields altered by the ban: Among the women, five players slated to be seeded were out, and on the men’s side, it was three, including world No. 1 Daniil Medvedev, who reached two finals during the grass-court stretch.

With second-ranked Alexander Zverev missing the tournament due to injury, Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal were the top seeds. Djokovic, whose year had been drama-filled to that point, survived a five-setter against Jannik Sinner in the quarterfinals in his march to the final.

Nadal, who won the first two majors of the year, also battled through a quarterfinal match that went the distance against Taylor Fritz, but couldn’t play the semifinals.

That left Djokovic facing the surprise of the tournament—one many expected to have been in this place before—Nick Kyrgios.

Throughout the tournament, Kyrgios played with a rarely seen focus that matched his ability, with his biggest win along the way coming in a heated match against fourth-seeded Stefanos Tsitsipas. In the final, though, it was the steadier Djokovic that came through in four sets for his seventh Wimbledon crown.

The Kyrgios surprise, though, paled in comparison to what transpired on the women’s side.

Already without a defending champion due to Ashleigh Barty’s retirement earlier in the year, Wimbledon had a worthy contender as successor in Iga Swiatek, who entered the tournament on an incredible 35-match winning streak. However, the world No. 1 was ousted in the third round by the veteran Alize Cornet. Anett Kontaveit, the second seed, fell a round short of Swiatek, and overall, only four of the top 16 seeds made it to the second week.

However, No. 17 did quite alright for herself.

Kazakhstan’s Elena Rybakina, playing in her first major final, defeated third seed Ons Jabeur, also making her debut appearance in a championship match at this level. Rybakina, who lost early in the warm-up tournaments before Wimbledon, became the lowest seed to win Wimbledon in more than a decade.

And there was so much more happening over the course of the fortnight.

Roger Federer missed the tournament for the first time since the late ‘90s. Serena Williams played her first singles event in a year and fell in the first round. Not to mention that deciding-set super tiebreaks were instituted and play on Middle Sunday became official.

And sneaking under the radar, 14th-seeded Australians Matt Ebden and Max Purcell won the men’s doubles title, going five sets in five of their six matches, fighting off match points and rallying from two sets down on multiple occasions.

It was an unexpected title run—or maybe par for the course, given the nature of the tournament this year.