Wimbledon Day 7 preview: As the top seeds fall, who will step up?

WIMBLEDON -- Raise your hand if you believed No. 101-ranked Solana Sierra would lose her last qualifying match here and somehow, improbably, land in the second week.

Step forward and receive our congratulations if you foresaw Laura Siegemund -- ranked No. 104 -- beating No. 6 seed Madison Keys and advancing to play Sierra.

A pat on the back (and a complimentary order of strawberries and cream) for those with the prescience to imagine a fourth-round match between No. 51-ranked Sonay Kartal and No. 50 Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova.

And yet, it all happened just like that.

There are only four Top 10 seeds left in the draw. In the top half, there is one, No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka. The rest of the field, clearly, senses an opening.

“I keep getting asked that,” Amanda Anisimova said. “I feel like maybe I feel a little bit of pressure because obviously you feel like the opportunity is there. This morning I was just telling myself that and, yeah, to just enjoy the moment, trust my game.

“I try and focus on what I can control and just zoom out of everything else.”

Not one of Sunday’s four fourth-round matches from the top half of draw followed the seedings.

We break them down:

No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka vs. No. 24 Elise Mertens

Head-to-head:10-2, Sabalenka, with two wins earlier this year, on the clay in Stuttgart and Madrid.

There are a number of numbers that suggest this will be difficult for Mertens, but the most ominous is this: Those 10 career wins are the most for Sabalenka against any player.

In a charged atmosphere on Centre Court, Sabalenka took down British No. 1 Emma Raducanu 7-6 (6), 6-4 in a wild third-round match on Friday. Sabalenka displayed enormous composure after being down 4-2 in the first set and 4-1 in the second. Sabalenka won the last five games.

“As my experience shows, it doesn’t matter,” Sabalenka said afterward. “This win doesn’t mean that I’m going to win the tournament. It doesn’t mean anything.

“It’s just a great match. It definitely gives me a lot of energy and good feeling that I was under pressure. So I’ll just enjoy it tonight. Tomorrow I’m going to focus on the next one.”

That first tiebreak? It was Sabalenka’s 13^th consecutive win in the extra session. That is the very definition of clutch.

One more number: Sabalenka’s 15 Grand Slam singles victories this year are the most among Hologic WTA Tour players.

Mertens had an impressive 6-1, 7-6 (4) win over Elina Svitolina to get here. Three weeks ago, she won the title at the Libema Open, scoring her 25^th career win over a Top 20 player, Ekaterina Alexandrova, in the semifinals.

A win against Sabalenka would send Mertens into the Wimbledon quarterfinals for the first time.

Laura Siegemund vs. lucky loser Solana Sierra

Head-to-head: 0-0.

These are the two least likely players left in this half of the draw.

Siegemund stunned No. 6 Madison Keys 6-3, 6-3, while Sierra defeated Cristina Bucsa 7-5, 1-6, 6-1. They’re both playing with the freedom that comes with being a massive underdog. Soon, one of them will be a Wimbledon quarterfinalist.

Sierra began the event outside the Top 100 and currently stands at No. 65. A win over Siegemund, hardly a stretch, would get her inside the Top 50. The 21-year-old Argentine had never won a main-draw match at a Grand Slam. Now, in a matter of five days, she has three -- over Olivia Gadecki, Katie Boulter and Cristina Bucsa.

She’s the first lucky loser to reach the fourth round at Wimbledon in the Open Era and only the seventh to do it in a major, joining, among others, Eva Lys at the 2025 Australian Open back in January.

As the second oldest woman in the draw, Siegemund has been defying gravity as well. And while she was a quarterfinalist twice here in doubles, in a week’s time she has exceeded her career total of singles wins, 3-2.

“I think we’re both in the position that we didn’t expect to go that far,” Siegemund said. “We had both many matches. Obviously she’s also a really good upcoming, young player, and I’ve seen her before.”

No. 13 Amanda Anisimova vs. No. 30 Linda Noskova

Head-to-head: 1-0, Noskova, two years ago in the second round at Indian Wells, 7-6 (6), 6-3.

Playing at a career-high No. 12, Anisimova is on the cusp of cracking the Top 10. When she defeated Dalma Galfi 6-3, 5-7, 6-3, it was her ninth win on grass this year in 11 outings.

Last month, Anisimova was a finalist at Queen’s Club and a quarterfinalist here three years ago as a 20-year-old.

“I didn’t grow up playing on grass,” Anisimova told reporters. “I think my first match on grass was when I was 15 years old, and I played the juniors here for the first time. I got to the quarters, which wasn’t bad. 

“But, yeah, I feel like once I stepped onto the grass, I was pretty comfortable from the get-go.”

Noskova, who defeated Kamilla Rakhimova 7-6 (6), 7-5, comes from an impressive line of Czech players who have enjoyed success at Wimbledon. There have been five champions: Barbora Krejcikova (2024), Marketa Vondrousova (2023), Petra Kvitova (2014, 2011) and Jana Novotna (1998).

Last week, Noskova reached the semifinals at Bad Homburg, beating Donna Vekic and Mirra Andreeva along the way.

Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova vs. Sonay Kartal

Head-to-head: 0-0.

The last British players still alive in Week 2 are Kartal and Cam Norrie.

Kartal was a 6-4, 6-2 winner over qualifier Diane Parry, advancing to the third round here for the second year in a row. A win would find her in the fourth round of a major for the first time in her career.

Kartal’s biggest asset against Pavlyuchenkova is her determination. Down 4-1 in the first set, she ran off nine straight games against Parry.

“I was just telling myself I have a long way to go before this match is over,” Kartal said. “I kind of trusted in my game that eventually I was going to start to relax into it, whether that was me winning the first set or losing. 

“I was impressed with myself how towards the end of the match I go 4-love up. I felt super calm, super collected.”

In her 16^th appearance at Wimbledon, Pavlyuchenkova has a chance to equal her best result, the quarterfinals nine years ago. This is her 65^th Grand Slam main draw, second only among players in this tournament to Victoria Azarenka’s 68.

The 34-year-old defeated Naomi Osaka 3-6, 6-4, 6-4. She’s coming off a career-best grass performance by making the semifinals at Eastbourne.