Wimbledon 2026 will not belong to Casper Ruud or Andrey Rublev. Ruud likely didn't expect much success at the grass-court major. Rublev, however, suffered a brutal loss.
Rublev played fellow Russian Roman Safiullin in round one, and actually led two sets to one. The fourth set got away from him a bit, though, and the match headed to a fifth. Each player kept holding serve, mostly easily, but the tie-break became so much more. Each suffered a mini-break through the first 12 points until each was able to keep winning points on their serve.
At 12-all, though, Rublev couldn't, and then Safiullin held the one point he needed to, and took the tie-break 14-12 to move into the second round.
Casper Ruud and Andrey Rublev have short stays at Wimbledon 2026
The loss knocked the 12-seed out of Wimbledon in the first round for the second time in three years. He had reached the quarterfinals in 2023, though, so he would have rightfully had higher hopes for this year.
Unfortunately, the poor showing at Wimbledon has continued a recent trend of performances at Grand Slam events for Andrey Rublev. Since the French Open in 2024, he hasn't made it past the fourth round at any major.
Ruud has never been great on grass courts. He's won 17 career titles, but none on the surface. His best performance at Wimbledon was only reaching the second round three different times.
He was also playing Hubert Hurkacz, a player whose game is tailor-made for grass, and one of his eight career titles was on the surface at the Halle Open in 2022. He was a semifinalist at Wimbledon in 2021.
In fact, a healthy and in-form Hurkacz could be a real threat to win Wimbledon. His huge serve will allow him to stay in matches he might not on a different surface.
Casper Ruud will likely head home with no hurt feelings, though. He is far better on clay courts, and any modicum of success at Wimbledon 2026 would have been terrific, but unexpected. He can look forward to the hard-court season getting back in swing, and he was a finalist at the US Open in 2022.
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