Wimbledon shake-up: 4 of top 5 women’s seeds eliminated in opening rounds

A few days into the 2025 Wimbledon Championships, the competition has seen surprising results, especially in the women’s tournament. Four out of five seeded players have been eliminated in the opening rounds, suggesting fierce and thrilling matches ahead. 

The first to exit Wimbledon 2025 was third-seeded Jessica Pegula, who had a surprising straight-sets defeat to Elisabetta Cocciaretto in the opening round. Furthermore, fifth seed Zheng Qinwen, who is also a 2024 Olympic gold medallist, was defeated by Katerina Siniakova. 

In another unexpected result, world No. 2 Coco Gauff was defeated in straight sets by unseeded Dayana Yastremska, with a final scoreline of 7-6(3), 6-1. Fourth seed Jasmine Paolini was the latest top player to exit this year’s Wimbledon when she was defeated in the second round by Kamilla Rakhimova of Russia. 

With Paolini’s loss, four out of the top five women’s seeds have now exited the tournament. Aryna Sabalenka was the only top seed left in the running for this year’s Wimbledon title.

A total of 23 seeded players lost in the first two days of the tournament. In the men’s tournament, thirteen athletes have already exited, including No. 3 seed Alexander Zverev.  No. 12 seed Frances Tiafoe also lost to Cameron Norrie.

Following all the upsets at the start of the competition, it seems that Wimbledon 2025 will continue to deliver more surprising results as the tournament moves forward.

Updates on seeded matches 

World No. 2 Coco Gauff suffered a first-round loss at Wimbledon, falling to World No. 42 Dayana Yastremska in straight sets, 7-6(3), 6-1.  This was a rematch of their previous meeting at the Madrid Open, where Gauff defeated Yastremska.

 “I feel like mentally I was a little bit overwhelmed with everything that came afterwards, so I didn’t feel like I had enough time to celebrate and also get back into it,” Gauff admitted. 

“But it’s the first time in this experience of, like, coming off a win and having to play Wimbledon. I definitely learned a lot of what I would and would not do again,” she added. 

Fourth seed Jasmine Paolini of Italy won the first set in her second-round match against Kamilla Rakhimova, but ultimately lost the match. After Paolini’s early advantage, Rakhimova made a powerful comeback to secure her win. 

Celebrating her victory, Rakhimova remarked, “It feels amazing. I enjoyed myself on the court today … I believed in myself and worked for it… I just tried to play point by point; it doesn’t matter the score, doesn’t matter the opponent, and did my job.”