One of the more dramatic matches of the early Wimbledon fortnight went the way of a former champion on Wednesday, as Barbora Krejcikova outlasted Mirra Andreeva, the tournament's fifth seed and the reigning French Open winner, in a three-set second-round thriller.
The comeback
Krejcikova, who lifted the Wimbledon trophy in 2024 but came into this year's Championships unseeded after a slide down the rankings, lost the opening set 6-4 before turning the match around, Tennis Majors reported. She took the second 7-5 and edged the decider 6-4 to advance, in what The Washington Post described as an upset over one of the sport's fastest-rising players.
The most fraught passage came as Krejcikova tried to close it out. Reaching match point repeatedly, she saw Andreeva fend off six of them before the Czech finally converted, according to Outlook India's account. Krejcikova moves into the third round on the grass she has, in the past, made her own.
A hard afternoon for Andreeva
For Andreeva, 19, who won the French Open earlier this season and came in among the favorites, the defeat was a bruising one. She grew visibly frustrated on court — at one point directing her anger at herself — and was tearful when she met reporters afterward, saying it would take her "some time" to move past the loss. She is a young player at the start of what many expect to be a long career, and the disappointment reflected how close she had come rather than any lack of quality.
Around the draw
Elsewhere in the women's event, results ran closer to form. Naomi Osaka moved into the third round with a straightforward win over Anastasia Gasanova, and American seventh seed Coco Gauff survived a scare against qualifier Solana Sierra, coming through 6-3, 3-6, 7-6 after saving the match in a tense final-set tiebreak. But it was Krejcikova's revival — a former champion, written off by the seedings, finding her level again on the game's biggest grass-court stage — that gave the day its headline.
