Category: 6. Sports

Former World No. 1 Iga Swiatek is through to the quarterfinals of Wimbledon for the second time in her career after a 6-4, 6-1 win over Denmark’s Clara Tauson on Monday at the All England Club.

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From 3-1 down in the first set after a shaky start on serve, Swiatek had her way with the No. 23 seed in their third career meeting in 1 hour and 5 minutes. The eighth seed’s improved form was coupled with Tauson suffering from an apparent illness; the Dane, who upset former Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina in the previous round to reach the Round of 16 at SW19 for the first time, received a medical timeout in the match, and Swiatek revealed that she told her she wasn’t feeling well when the two shook hands. 

“Even though the beginning was pretty shaky with the double faults, I managed to play well and solid,” Swiatek, who double-faulted four times in her first two service games but just once for the rest of the match, said. “I’m hoping she’s going to have a good recovery and a fast one.”

“It’s never easy to keep your focus,” Swiatek continued. “I know that sometimes when I wasn’t feeling well that I’d just let go of everything and it gives you a boost. I just tried to be ready for everything.”

Swiatek finished the match with 18 winners and five breaks of Tauson’s serve — but those weren’t the only notable numbers. Read on for more.

3: Swiatek is now 3-0 against Tauson in their careers — and, in fact, went on to win the title at the only Hologic WTA Tour event where she faced Tauson previously: the 2022 BNP Paribas Open.

4: Swiatek has reached the quarterfinals or better at the last four consecutive Grand Slam events.

7: Swiatek has now won seven grass-court matches in 2025, tying her highest mark in an entire season, which came in 2023.

12: Swiatek has now reached 12 Grand Slam quarterfinals in her career. She is the youngest player to reach a dozen quarterfinals at majors since Maria Sharapova reached her 12th at the 2008 Australian Open — and since Swiatek’s Grand Slam debut in 2019, only Aryna Sabalenka has reached more major quarterfinals. Sabalenka has 13 on her resume and counting.

More to come…

Erin Routliffe and Gaby Dabrowski are into the Wimbledon quarterfinals following their 7-6(1) 7-6(2) win over Irina Khromacheva from Russia and Hungary’s Fanny Stollar on Monday.

The win means they have reached at least the quarterfinals in all six of the grand slams they have played together, as they continue to be regarded as one of the top doubles teams in the world. 

But this was Routliffe and Dabrowski’s toughest match so far during the Wimbledon fortnight and they needed to raise their levels to clinch both sets.

Dabrowski had her serve broken in the second game, but Stollar wasn’t able to consolidate that lead and was broken in the following game.

Dabrowski fell behind 30-40 at 4-5 for a set point, but Routliffe hit an angled volley at the net for a winner.

Stollar and Khromacheva had another set point soon after and again Routliffe raced across the net for another winning volley.

For a third time the Europeans had a set point and yet again Routliffe was waiting at the net to hit a winner and eventually Dabrowski got the hold.

Although the set was tight, there was only one team in the tiebreak, with Routliffe and Dabrowski winning it 7-1.

Routliffe and Khromacheva both fended off break points early in the second set and after that, the serve dominated.

But once more the tournament’s second seeds took control in the tiebreak, so advanced to the quarterfinals, where they’ll face Veronika Kudermetova from Russia and Belgium’s Elise Mertens.

Although it was a straight-sets win, it still took one hour and 48 minutes — but Dabrowski was relieved they didn’t need a third set.

“We got the job done in two sets, that makes it a bit easier on the body and mind,” she said. 

“They played well, they served well and it’s not uncommon, especially on the grass, to find yourself in tiebreakers when both teams are serving pretty well.”

It is almost two years since Routliffe and Dabrowski started playing together, in Montreal in August 2023.

Spending that much time on court together, helps when they’re in tight situations, like in both of the tiebreaks in this match. 

“I don’t think it can hurt us, we handled the moments very well,” Dabrowski said. 

“We stepped up to close out both of those sets, played very clinically and that’s the way we want to play. So it was kind of very calm and collected, and it worked out luckily in our favour.”

It will be the first meeting between these four players, who between them have appeared in 12 Grand Slam finals.

“It’s kind of nice we get to play a different team,” Routliffe said. 

“A lot of the time you find yourself playing the same teams, sometimes over and over and over again. So it’ll be exciting, we’re excited.”

Dabrowski added that it should be an interesting match up.

“They serve big, they return big, they have good ground strokes,” she said. 

“So we’ll see how our game style matches up against theirs. I’m really curious to see how it’ll go on the grass for us.”

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WIMBLEDON — Liudmila Samsonova had just reached the first Grand Slam quarterfinal of her career, a moment she called the “most emotional” she has experienced in tennis. But as she sat down for her postmatch press conference, her face was clouded with disbelief and frustration.

Raised and resident in Italy since the age of one, Samsonova had just been asked about Iga Swiatek’s enthusiasm for the Polish dish of pasta with strawberries, shared with Centre Court on Saturday in the No. 8 seed’s on-court interview.

Wimbledon: Scores | Order of play | Draws

“I’m Italian, so I cannot say anything about that,” said Samsonova, throwing her hands up. “For Italian people, it’s something crazy. Like, it’s not even in the — it’s impossible to dream about this.”

It turns out Swiatek will be Samsonova’s opponent in the Wimbledon quarterfinals. Not that Samsonova will know. Before meeting with the press, she made one request: Don’t tell her who she’s playing next. It’s a habit she’s kept for years.

“It’s helping me mentally,” she said. “Don’t think about [the match] too early because I’m starting to burn my mind, overthink.”

Samsonova doesn’t plan to find out until Tuesday night — “at the end of the day,” as she puts it — just before she plays. She jokes that she’s been successful in avoiding this information for so long because “social media, they don’t care about me.”

However, if she continues to deliver on the promise that many have seen in her ever since 2021, when she mowed down a series of higher-ranked opponents including Madison Keys and Belinda Bencic to capture the Berlin title as a qualifier, that may change.

Milestones unlocked in the 2025 grass swing

Before Wimbledon, Samsonova, ranked No. 19, was the third-highest player yet to reach a Grand Slam quarterfinal.  She’s a five-time WTA titlist and has reached two WTA 1000 finals (Montreal and Beijing in 2023), but had lost all four of her Grand Slam fourth-round matches.

Samsonova has finally broken through that barrier, edging Jessica Bouzas Maneiro 7-5, 7-5 on Court 2 on Monday. It comes hot on the heels of another first. Three weeks ago in Berlin, she triumphed 6-7(8), 7-5, 7-6(5) over defending champion Jessica Pegula in the second round.

At 3 hours and 21 minutes, it’s the second longest match of this year’s grass swing. It was also the first time Samsonova had won from match point down at tour level (she saved two down 5-4 in the third set). And it gave her serious boost ahead of Wimbledon.

“It was like, you know when you have to climb the mountain? It was that one,” Samsonova said. “When I won that match, I did something special, something that I was searching for since a lot of time. It was something that gave me so much confidence, that match. It was unbelievable.”

Quest for personal identity comes together

In a recent “Behind the Racquet” post, Samsonova admitted some of her early struggles derived from a lack of identity. She had been pulled in various sporting directions as a child. She was raised in Turin by Russian parents, but Italian citizenship laws meant that she could not acquire a passport of her resident country. Samsonova, who had represented Italy as a junior, reverted to her parents’ flag in 2018. She didn’t even know what game style best suited her.

Now, it’s all starting to make sense.

“It’s because … every person is growing in different time, like the maturity of the person,” Samsonova said. “It’s different from anyone. So I think I’m starting to know very well who I am, which player I am, and everything. The puzzle is just going, like, everything together.”

Alex Baudin won the Tour de Limousin last year, finished second at the Coppa Bernocchi, and came third on GC at the Tour of Guangxi, but the 23-year-old from the French Alps says that his most memorable ride is still a month-long bikepacking adventure he took across Europe. He is going to fit right in in his first season in EF Education-EasyPost pink.

Alex is a punchy climber, who excels at sustained, explosive efforts like the Ardennes classics demand. His favorite race that he has done so far is the Clásica de San Sebastián. He also likes the Grand Prix Cycliste de Montréal and Québec, because his uncles, who now live in Canada, can come to cheer. But Alex always returns home to the Alps and the roads he has been riding ever since he was a child.

He first fell in love with cycling when he was four-years-old. His dad was a racer and would take him up into the mountains to watch the Tour de France whenever the race neared their Albertville home. Alex was soon tearing up climbs like the Cormet de Roselend with his father, emulating the heroes he’d seen attacking through the colorful crowds. His dad was his first coach and had to tell him to slow down.

As Alex got older, he began to train harder and soon established himself as one of the most promising young climbers in France. The mountains are where he is most at home.

As soon as snow falls in the Alps, Alex heads to his local cross-country trails. Gliding across meadows and through forests is a great way for him to build his fitness and get away from it all.

To fuel all his time outside, Alex also loves to cook. When he is done cycling, Alex thinks he might become a chef.

For now, his focus is 100 percent on cycling. He wants to fly in his first year in pink.

This summer, Alex will make his Tour de France debut. Watch him soar in the mountains all around France this July.