Wimbledon Defending Champion Vondrousova Set To Exit Top 10 After Shock Defeat

Marketa Vondrousova crashed out of the 2024 Wimbledon Championships in the opening round and that will have a major impact on her ranking at the end of the fortnight.

On Tuesday, Vondrousova became the first women's defending champion at Wimbledon to exit the tournament at the first hurdle since the legendary Steffi Graf bowed out at the same stage to Lori McNeil in the 1994 edition.

The Czech lefty's record-breaking success last summer sent shockwaves all over the tennis world. She became the first unseeded player to win the Ladies' singles title at the All England Club, and she vaulted into the WTA's Top 10 for the first time.

But her exit during her title defense raised even more eyebrows after she lost to Jessica Bouzas Maneiro, who was ranked 83rd in the WTA rankings. Before this week, she had only played once in a Grand Slam main draw, losing to Jana Fett in the first round of Roland Garros in late May.

Vondrousova's exit will send her ranking spiraling out of the world's Top 10. For now, it's unclear how low it will tank, but her best-case scenario is 15th, which is where she finds herself in the live rankings.

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But with the tournament still in its infancy stage and many of the players ranked outside the Top 15 in contention, it's possible Vondrousova could cascade even lower.

It has been a mixed year for the 25-year-old, who has struggled to cope with the demands of becoming a Grand Slam champion. Her best results of the current campaign remain reaching the semifinal at the WTA 500 event in Stuttgart and the quarterfinals of Roland Garros.

Her preparations for Wimbledon suffered a major setback when she retired injured in Berlin following a nasty tumble on the slippery court. However, that was not the primary cause of her defeat to Bouzas Maneiro on Tuesday.

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