Why Wimbledon qualifying remains a secret treasure for players and fans

After so many British tennis summers, Dan Evans was not expecting to be dipping himself into an ice bath halfway through what proved to be the last singles match of his career.

But on the third day of qualifying for Wimbledon 2026, a power outage downed the electronic line-calling system that judges whether shots are in or out, causing matches across 18 courts to be suspended for over an hour. In soaring temperatures, which reached a high of 95 degrees, competitors bidding to make it into the third Grand Slam of the tennis calendar retreated to the air-conditioned player facilities, and in some cases took Evans’ route to a fast cool down.

When the system came back online, Evans struggled to get himself back into the match and lost 7-5, 6-0 to 25-year-old Australian Tristan Schoolkate. The 36-year-old has a wild card into the men’s doubles event, but the defeat didn’t just mean that he would not play the Wimbledon singles.

It meant that Evans, who criticized the tournament’s decision not to award him a singles wild card after the defeat, would not even step into the prestigious venue, the All England Lawn Tennis Club, for one last hurrah as a main-draw singles player.

Wimbledon is the only Grand Slam that still holds its qualifying off-site. The Australian, French and U.S. Opens stage the competition on the same courts as their main draws, and have turned this third week of action (on top of the two weeks of main-draw play) into a special occasion. They hold events around it and, in the case of the French Open’s second show court, Court Suzanne-Lenglen, put the best matches on one of the loveliest arenas in tennis.

But because of grass maintenance and court capacity, Wimbledon hopefuls don’t even get to cross the threshold without winning three matches at the Wimbledon Qualifying and Community Sports Centre in Roehampton, southwest London, which is two-and-a-half miles northwest of the AELTC as a tennis ball flies. Wimbledon began selling tickets in 2017, for £5 ($6.50), and while they are now £20 ($26) a ticket, the event remains popular with local tennis fans and being here is a victory for many of the competitors in itself.

“You can get really close to the matches,” Steve Hoggart, who made the journey from Upminster, a suburb in east London, with his wife, Joy, said during an interview. “Some of these players might be stars next week at Wimbledon.

“It’s really good for anybody who couldn’t get Wimbledon tickets and they want to see some tennis, or just see what it’s like, because it’s quite similar to Wimbledon.”

Peter Lilley and Mark Jackson are from London and have been coming to watch the qualifiers for the past decade. They can remember the days it was free to watch, and they are grateful it has managed to retain its “low-key” energy when compared to the main event.

“It’s like a little, hidden secret, the Wimbledon qualifiers, that a lot of people don’t know about,” Lilley said.

In the future, that will change. In March 2026, the AELTC cleared its most significant legal obstacle to tripling the size of its grounds, which will include building 39 new grass courts and hosting qualifying on-site, like the other three majors. Moving qualifying will see up to 10,000 fans enter the AELTC grounds per day, according to tournament estimates, compared to the 2,000 capacity at the Roehampton venue.

That is unlikely to take place until at least the 20230s, so there is plenty of time for fans to enjoy the small-scale atmosphere.

“If it goes as part of the Wimbledon thing, suddenly everybody will know about and it will just become ridiculous,” Lilley said.

“If Wimbledon takes away the low pricing, it will probably ruin it — if I’ve got to pay to go Wimbledon and then also pay like 80 quid ($105) or whatever to come to this.”

“You get players who are up and coming, like Mirra Andreeva was here a few years ago. She won the French Open last month,” Jackson said.

“You get players who are at the end of their careers, or trying to come back from injury. You get a real good mix and get to see some really good tennis players.”

The ups-and-downs of most players’ careers mean that Jackson’s sentiment will always hold true.

Alina Korneeva, a peer of Russia’s Andreeva who won girls’ Grand Slam titles at the Australian and French Opens in 2023, has since had to manage numerous injuries, including to her playing wrist, the ailment that tennis stars might fear most of all. On Wednesday, the 19-year-old was at Roehampton to push herself past Spain’s Andrea Lázaro Garcia in three sets to reach the third and final round of qualifying.

“I expected a better reaction from my body, but yesterday was tough, today even more,” Korneeva, who will now play her third match in as many days Thursday against American Fiona Crawley, said during an interview.

“During the match I was using a lot of ice towels, trying to use all the time between the points, trying to breathe, but it was tough.”

Korneeva, who recently broke into the top 100, is not a fan of ice baths, but knew she had no option after her match. Like the majority of players, Korneeva is familiar with playing in testing climates, but this heat was something else.

“I also didn’t expect London to be like this because when you go to London you expect that rainy, jackets, everything,” Korneeva laughed. “It’s super unusual.

“The facilities here are nice, very beautiful. Maybe it’s not the best that we can’t appear in Wimbledon because it’s the same tournament. … But if we want to qualify we can go there. I mean, that’s a good motivation. It’s a great goal to play well here and then to go to the main site, but I also like the beautiful courts here.”

The long-term status of Roehampton as the qualifying venue means that for some players, it has become imbued with meaning beyond just this event.

Esther Adeshina, a 24-year-old Brit, played against two-time Grand Slam champion Coco Gauff in a junior tournament at the venue in 2017. Last week, she came through a play-off to reach Wimbledon qualifying for the first time, and her father, Ade, who watched her against Gauff nine years ago, surprised Esther by flying from his home in Toronto, Canada, to watch her play.

On Tuesday, Adeshina defeated Japan’s Moyuka Uchijima, ranked 408 places above her on Tuesday. And even after she lost 6-2, 6-2 to France’s Harmony Tan Wednesday, Ade and Esther’s mother, Christiana, could not stop smiling.

“It’s her first major experience, so this is the first time she qualified,” Ade said. “It’s been a long journey and she’s been working so hard and I think she knows that she can compete at this level, so we’re just really proud of her.” Adeshina, like so many players at Roehampton the past few days, did not make it across the Wimbledon threshold, but the qualifying experience remains a special one for them and the fans who treasure this small-scale event for as long as it exists.

This article originally appeared in The Athletic.

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