World No.1 Iga Swiatek was knocked out from Wimbledon 2024 after losing her third round match in women's singles to Yulia Putintseva. The 29-year-old Russian-born Kazakhstani beat the Polish tennis ace 3-6, 6-1, 6-2 to stretch her dream run to the fourth round.
Swiatek has only once been as far as the quarterfinals at Wimbledon; that was last year, when she lost at that stage.
Playing in her maiden third round match at Wimbledon, Putintseva did not put a foot wrong after losing the first set to the top seed. Swiatek started off the match in the usual fashion, dominating the 35th seed and breaking her serve twice, but as the match progressed, Putintseva raised her game to never-before-seen levels.
She bulldozed through the second set, giving Swiatek no chance whatsoever. The top seed managed to hold just one service game in the second set.
The third was no different. An off-colour Swiatek tried to crawl back into the contest, but Putintseva was just too good.
She entered Saturday on a 21-match winning streak, all on clay, and decided to withdraw from the only grass-court tuneup that was originally on her schedule before Wimbledon.
{{/usCountry}}She entered Saturday on a 21-match winning streak, all on clay, and decided to withdraw from the only grass-court tuneup that was originally on her schedule before Wimbledon.
{{/usCountry}}This result also was unexpected because Swiatek not only had won all four previous meetings against the 35th-ranked Putintseva, but also had won every set they had played.
But Swiatek looked very little like someone who has led the WTA rankings for nearly every week since April 2022 and is assured of remaining there no matter what happens the rest of the way at Wimbledon.
She kept making mistakes, particularly over the last two sets, when Putintseva did not even try to put balls away and instead was happy to allow Swiatek to help her.
When Putintseva was building a 4-0 lead in the last set by grabbing 16 of its first 19 points, she only needed to produce two winners. That's because her other 14 points were all gained thanks to either unforced errors (seven) or forced errors (seven) off Swiatek’s racket.
After one miss into the net, Swiatek muttered to herself, and she generally looked as flustered as she ever does during a match.