Ten British players lost on opening day at Wimbledon. It was the worst single-day result for home players at the All England Club since daily records began in 2000.
Katie Swan stopped the run from reaching 11.
According to BBC Sport, Swan beat Romania's Irina-Camelia Begu 6-4, 6-4 on Court 16 to become the first British singles player into the second round. It was her first main-draw victory at a grand slam since she beat the same opponent at Wimbledon in 2018, and her first grand slam appearance in three years. The 27-year-old threw herself to the ground when the match ended.
Swan's win came after a serious back injury had pushed her close to walking away from the sport entirely in 2024. She did not face a break point until she was serving for the match, and she won 88 percent of first-serve points throughout. She eventually sealed the victory on her fifth match point.
Her second-round opponent will be either 2025 Australian Open champion Madison Keys or American qualifier Kayla Day.
The relief around Swan's result was sharpened by what happened everywhere else. Cameron Norrie, the highest-ranked British player in the draw, was among the 10 who fell on opening day. Jack Draper had already withdrawn with injury 24 hours before his scheduled first match. Emma Raducanu, who had been listed as the 30th seed, pulled out on the eve of the tournament after a final scan revealed a stress fracture in her right leg. Raducanu said she had "done everything possible to try to get to the start line tomorrow but after a final scan tonight, the niggle I've been managing has developed into a stress fracture and I've been medically advised to stop pushing through."
Katie Boulter's loss on day two extended the damage. The world No. 59 fell to Italian teenager Tyra Caterina Grant, 6-2, 6-4. Grant is 18 years old, had never played a singles match on grass at any level before Wimbledon qualifying this year, and was making her grand slam main-draw debut. Boulter did not earn a single break point in the match. Grant dropped just three points across her final four service games.
The result was Boulter's first opening-round Wimbledon loss since 2017 and her first-ever loss to a qualifier at a grand slam. It arrived just 18 days after Boulter produced what BBC Sport described as the biggest win of her career by ranking, defeating world No. 2 Elena Rybakina at Queen's.
Among the other British players to fall in the first round were Harriet Dart, who lost to Jelena Ostapenko 6-3, 3-6, 6-4, and Fran Jones, beaten 6-4, 6-4 by Diane Parry. Alicia Dudeney, making her Wimbledon debut, also lost in the first round. Last year, 13 British players went out in round one. Before this week, the record for first-round losses in a single year was 16, set in 1988.
