Patrick Mouratoglou explains why the big name exits at Wimbledon are no surprise

Kevin Palmer
Coco Gauff, Alexander Zverev and Jack Draper
Coco Gauff, Alexander Zverev and Jack Draper

Patrick Mouratoglou has insisted the catalogue of upsets in the first week of Wimbledon is not a shock, as he has claimed the word ‘surprise’ needs to be removed from this Grand Slam.

The three-week transition period between the end of the French Open on clay courts and the start of Wimbledon leaves players short of grass court practice time heading into the most prestigious tournament in tennis.

That has inspired Mouratoglou to suggest early exits for the likes of Coco Gauff, Alexander Zverev, Jessica Pegula and Jack Draper should not be seen as a surprise.

“Let’s ban the word “surprise” from our Wimbledon vocabulary,” declared Mourtoglou in a post on LinkedIn. “You can’t call something a surprise if it happens every single year.

“23 seeded players, 13 men and 10 women, including 8 top-10s, are out in the 2025 first round. Zverev, Gauff, Rune, Medvedev, Pegula, Tsitsipas… gone. It sounds unreal. But at Wimbledon, it happens. Every. Single. Year.

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“Wimbledon is unique and the transition from clay to grass is brutal. There are only three weeks between Roland-Garros and Wimbledon. That’s not enough time for the top players to perform well.

“Clay and grass are polar opposites. On clay: high bounce, long rallies, sliding, baseline endurance. On grass: low bounce, explosive movement, serve & return, short points.

“Players have no time to adapt. Roland-Garros ends, and just three weeks later, you’re expected to perform at peak level on a surface you only see 2-3 weeks a year.

“Top players are exhausted. They go deep at Roland-Garros. Then they rest. Then they get only a few days of grass prep and boom, it’s Wimbledon.

“And let’s be clear: mastering grass takes time. But no one has the time. That’s the real problem.

Patrick Mouratoglou speaks at press conference
Patrick Mouratoglou

“So what happens? You step into round one of a Grand Slam on a surface you don’t fully control… and you face someone whose game naturally fits grass better. And suddenly, you’re out.

“It’s frustrating. But unless the calendar changes and I don’t see how it can, given the weather constraints and the tradition of Wimbledon, this will keep happening.

“The question is no longer why it happens. It’s: How do the best players adapt fast enough before it’s too late? Because it’s sad to have most of the top players losing early in a Grand Slam.”

Mouratoglou’s comments are hard to dispute, but it is also tough to find a way to change the brief gap between the French Open and Wimbledon.

The solution may be moving Wimbledon to the third and fouth weeks in July, but that would then overlap with the US hard court season that gets underway in earnest in early August.

The ATP and WTA Tour’s decision to extend their marquee events ahead of the US Open has also shrunk the options to create a bigger gap between the French Open and Wimbledon, so the game’s top players look set to be stuck with the current set-up for the next few years.

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