Jack Draper fumbles the British crown, and the Iga Swiatek of old makes a comeback

Through the early afternoon, Day 4 at Wimbledon seemed to be going as planned: Novak Djokovic, Iga Swiatek, and Jannik Sinner all took care of business on Centre Court. Then, in the most anticipated match of the day from the locals’ perspective, everything fell apart: Jack Draper, the heir to Tim Henman and Andy Murray, was ambushed and knocked flat by 36-year-old Marin Cilic.

The Brits had lost their best male hope, and the tournament had lost another high seed. Here’s how that match, and two others, played out.

Jack Draper fumbled the British crown and said grass isn’t his thing (yet)

In British terms, it was “hide behind the sofa time.” Tennis fans from from the U.K. have found themselves in that position a lot over the last couple of decades. First Tim Henman and then Andy Murray made them scared to look at their TVs, as they took the country on an annual roller-coaster ride through the Wimbledon fortnight.

Now it was Draper’s turn to keep that harrowing tradition alive. This was the first year where the 23-year-old seemed to have a legitimate chance to win the title. He was seeded fourth, he had a Masters 1000 title and a win over Carlos Alcaraz this year, and his lefty serve looked like the perfect preemptive weapon for grass.

But Draper’s ride didn’t last long. It started with a straight drop downhill, had a brief bump up midway through, and finished with a stunningly quick fall to defeat.

In tennis terms, rather than amusement-park terms, he lost 6-4, 6-3, 1-6, 6-4 to 36-year-old Marin Cilic.

There were no moral victories or promising signs or lessons for Draper. He was fuming at himself.

“Very frustrated, obviously really upset,” he said to start his press conference. “Probably one of the toughest losses I feel.”

But it wasn’t a complete surprise to him.

“There’s a bit of a misconception like, just ‘cause I’m a 6’4” lefty, I must be incredible on grass,” he said. “I’ve been really disappointed with the way my game's been on the grass this year, in all honesty.”

“I felt great on the hard, felt great on the clay. My game, I felt like there wasn’t many holes, whereas, as soon as I came onto the grass, I felt a big difference.”

Read More: Marin Cilic never lost belief he could build himself back up to another major moment

What were those holes? Draper was happy to specify.

“I think the hole in my forehand showed up, for sure. I wasn’t able to deal with his pace of ball into my forehand. I was over-spinning a lot.”

“Movement could have been better,” he added. “There’s many areas of my game which I still really, really need to work on to be the player I want to be.”

But Draper was also aware that his opponent had a lot to do with his defeat. Cilic made the Wimbledon final eight years ago, and he turned back the clock to those days on Thursday. He hit 16 aces and 53 winners to just 29 for Draper. Cilic’s down the line forehand in particular was a killer. You could see how much better his flat forehand penetrated through the grass than Draper’s spinnier shot.

“Cilic played an incredible match from start to finish,” Draper said.“Didn’t let up. He deserved the win.”

If there’s one silver lining for British fans, Draper was finished before anyone had to think about jumping behind the couch.

Hailey Baptiste went coach-less and came back more confident in herself

“Slow and steady wins the race”—or at least puts you in the race—could be the unspoken slogan of Hailey Baptiste’s six-year career. Since 2020, the D.C. native’s year-end ranking has moved from 232 to 168 to 166 to 131 to 92. Now, halfway through 2025, she has taken her biggest step up yet, to a career-high No. 55.

“Slow and steady” is also a good description of how she looks during her matches. She never rushes, doesn’t show much emotion, and seems generally calm and collected at all times. That’s true for the way she constructs points, too. Baptiste can belt her serve and slug her ground strokes with just about anyone. But she prefers to take her time and use her kick serve and slice backhand to set up her inside-out forehand. That’s textbook 2020s tennis—along with a couple of things her opponents don’t see every day.

“I just like to be creative on court,” says Baptiste, who followed in Frances Tiafoe’s footsteps at the JTCC in College Park, MD, and is coached by his twin brother, Franklin, now.

“I grew up playing with boys pretty much my whole youth. My coaches kind of coached me to play a little bit more like a guy…Obviously it helps me, I think. Girls don’t love the kick serve and the slice.”

Girls don’t love seeing Baptiste in their draws lately. At Roland Garros, she reached the fourth round at a major for the first time; with her win over Victoria Mboko on Thursday, she’ll make her third-round debut at Wimbledon.

On the one hand, Baptiste, who turned pro at 17, has been around long enough to qualify as a veteran. On the other, she’s still just 23, and essentially has her whole career ahead of her.

What has made the difference in the last 12 months? She says that spending a good chunk of time without a coach, traveling by herself, “just kind of thugging it, battling my way through matches,” brought her a new perspective. That lifestyle would be enough to break a lot of players, but she says it “gave me a new love for the game.”

“Lose a match, didn’t really have anyone to talk to afterwards,” Baptiste said. “Kind of my friends saying, ‘Tough luck.’ Had to do the whole debrief process by myself. You just learn things about yourself and about the game. Yeah, I think it gave me confidence.”

Baptiste had the confidence to come back from 2-5 in the first set, and then 2-5 in the tiebreaker, against Mboko. She’ll need more, maybe much more, of where that came from, when she goes up against No. 6 seed Mirra Andreeva next.

The Iga Swiatek of 2025 arrived, only to be pushed aside by the Iga Swiatek of old

At first, the old Iga Swiatek was back—as in, the pre-2025 Iga. For five games, she ran American Caty McNally around Centre Court and led 4-1. Once upon a time, you would have banked on her winning the next eight games and closing the match out in under an hour.

Then, unfortunately for her, the 2025 Iga returned. She missed a forehand, and then another, and pretty soon she had lost control of the shot altogether. Either she didn’t put enough spin on it and it sailed over the baseline, or she put too much spin on it and smothered it into the net. At one stage, McNally sent a series of second serves into her forehand at break point, but Swiatek couldn’t get any of them back in the court.

“I think I lost my intensity,” Swiatek said. “Obviously I knew I can play well because I did at the beginning of the match, but I lost the quality, did some unforced errors.

“Then on grass I feel like the momentum can change pretty quickly. I let her back in the game. I was still, like, trying to be proactive, but sometimes I missed easy shots.”

Read More: Iga Swiatek escapes junior doubles partner Caty McNally at Wimbledon

After taking her customary bathroom break, Swiatek gathered herself as quickly as she had unraveled. The forehand was finding the corners now, and her game followed suit. For Iga, footwork and shot selection are paramount on grass, a surface that gives her a little less time to set up than her favored clay.

“For sure second and third set I played how I wanted to play,” she said. “It’s about being more proactive, I would say, and sometimes making braver decisions and for sure the intensity with the footwork.”

Intensity shouldn’t be lacking in her next match, against Danielle Collins. Neither should motivation: The American won their most recent meeting, two months ago in Rome.

Read More: Jannik Sinner eases into Wimbledon third round with straight-sets victory over Aleksandar Vukic