Alex de Minaur has sealed his place in the last 16 at Wimbledon for the second time in his career in unfortunate circumstances. 

The world No.9 was set to take to the court on Saturday to play qualifier and former top 10 player Lucas Pouille. However, the Frenchman has been forced to pull out of the tournament due to an abdominal injury. Making it the first time in this year’s tournament that a singles player has won a match without playing a point as the result of a walkover. 

Fears about Pouille’s fitness started earlier in the week when he received medical treatment during his second round meeting against Thanasi Kokkinakis, who coincidentally retired from the third set of that encounter after slipping and injuring his knee. 

“I called the physiotherapist, he put two tapes on me. I told him to put on the thing that holds the most,” Pouille said after his match against Kokkinakis on Thursday. 
“I don’t know what I have, we’re going to do the exams and treatments to give ourselves a chance to be as good as possible and, above all, on the court on Saturday.” 

Sadly for Pouille, he wasn’t able to get fit enough in time for today’s match. 

Meanwhile, de Minaur has become the third active male player from Australia to reach the fourth round at Wimbledon on multiple occasions after Nick Kyrgios and Bernard Tomic. Coming into this year’s draw he has experienced mixed results on the grass after winning his ninth ATP title in ‘s-Hertogenbosch before losing in the first round at Queen’s. 

“What’s driving me this Wimbledon is that I need to put up a decent performance here on the grass because I don’t want to be classified as a clay court specialist,” joked de Minaur who reached the quarter-finals of the French Open earlier this year.
“So I’m pushing hard. I’m trying to keep on going. Hopefully I can have a better result.”

The ninth seed will next play either Arthur Fils or Roman Safiullin. 

Jasmine Paolini admits she used to find it a ‘nightmare’ to play big-hitting players but now she is ready for the challenge at Wimbledon. 

The world No.7 is through to the fourth round of the grasscourt major for the first time in her career after rallying to a 7-6(4), 6-1, win over former US Open champion Bianca Andreescu. Before this season, she had never won a Tour-level match on the grass. She has now won 12 Grand Slam matches in 2024 which is the joint-highest on the WTA Tour with Coco Gauff, who will play later today. 

“I’m feeling good. Every match, it’s different,” said Paolini. 
“I think I played really good three matches, especially the second and the third one. The first one I think I was a little bit more nervous.
“I’m just thinking of trying to play point by point. But it’s not easy.”

Things will only get harder for Paolini who will next take on Madison Keys. A player that is known as a tricky opponent at major events. Illustrated by the fact she has reached a Grand Slam fourth round or better on 20 separate occasions since 2015. 

In their only previous meeting on the Tour, Keys thrashed Paolini 6-1, 6-1, with the use of her powerful hitting. However, this time round the Italian believes she is better prepared to deal with that power. 

“It was a nightmare facing those players,” Paolini said in Italian when asked about facing powerful players.
“Against everyone, you can win or lose, but at least you can play a match with them. I just couldn’t stay in the match.
“Now I’m a bit more comfortable, more confident.”

Regardless of what happens, the 28-year-old has already sealed her name in the history books by becoming the first woman from her country to reach the fourth round or better at the first three Grand Slams of a season. 

“It’s strange,” she said of the achievement. “When I was watching the girls (Francesca Schiavone, Flavia Pennetta etc) that were winning slams, making finals, I felt like they were so far from me.
“It’s something that of course I’m proud of, but it sounds a little bit strange.”

For the first time in Wimbledon’s history, organisers have created a service to monitor abusive comments sent to players via social media. 

The monitoring service was confirmed by tournament director Jamie Baker on Friday while he was speaking with the media. According to research conducted by the World Sports Network, Novak Djokovic, Stefanos Tsitsipas and Carlos Alcaraz all received a high level of negative comments on social media compared to their peers. On the women’s side, the top three were Aryna Sabalenka, Elena Rybakina and Caroline Garcia. Daria Kasatkina has previously described the issue as ‘out of control’ when speaking about her experiences on social media. 

“This year is the first year that we have got effectively a social media monitoring service specifically for the event,” the AFP news agency quoted Baker as saying.

“This is not something that you’ll see in the public domain at all. You won’t see us shout about it but effectively we are scrolling social media for any of this type of content and it means that we can get information that we haven’t had in the past.

“We’re not just relying on what a player might be saying is happening to them but also if there is something that is of concern that’s when our security teams can basically kick in and actually help do something about it.”

Wimbledon’s new service can be used at the player’s disposal. However, they won’t pursue any incidents unless they have been asked to do so. This is not the first time such an initiative in tennis has occured. Last December a proactive monitoring service that aims to protect athletes from online abuse and threats was established by the ITF, WTA, AELTC and USTA.

“The benefit of having it is that we do have the ability to officially register what’s going on but we wouldn’t be taking any of those steps without actually engaging with the player and their teams and trying to get a feel for what’s going on,” Baker commented.

“This is the obviously the first time we’ve had it at our event but tennis is doing a lot more of this now so I think in generalfor the athletes it’s really positive that we’re taking this step.”

A study commissioned by the International Olympic Committee concluded that there has been a ‘considerable rise’ in online abuse against athletes in recent years.