The favourites

There are two clear favourites to lift the women’s Wimbledon title in July, but neither provide compelling cases that they live up to that tag.

Serena Williams once again comes into the grass-court major as the clear favourite, despite having not won a Grand Slam since January 2017.

She reached four finals in the three years preceding that victory, but none since the beginning of 2020.

There is now enough evidence that she doesn’t have it in her to go all the way and equal Margaret Court’s record for the most Grand Slam titles of all time.

The second-favourite Ashleigh Barty went into the French Open with an injury and was forced to retire in the second round of the competition.

There are too many doubts about her fitness to trust that she can go all the way here, while she has never progressed beyond the fourth round regardless.

The outsiders

With Williams and Barty in the same side of the draw, there could be value in backing players to overcome that seemingly formidable opposition and win the title.

Karolina Muchova has a decent run to the fourth round before she would come up against Williams in the quarter-finals.

She reached the semi-finals of the Australian Open in January, was only beaten by Sloane Stephens at Roland Garros earlier this month, and has reached two other quarter-finals this season.

She also reached the last eight last time out here in 2019.

Coco Gauff has reached six quarter-finals this season, including three semi-finals and one title at the Emilia-Romagna Open in May.

She would be due to face Williams in the fourth round, having beaten Serena’s sister Venus on the way to that stage aged just 15 in 2019.

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