Andreescu takes detour back to Wimbledon; Gjorcheska makes national history

LONDON -- As Bianca Andreescu slammed home her final drive volley winner to defeat Aliaksandra Sasnovich 6-3, 7-6(4) in the third round of Wimbledon qualifying and book her place in her first Grand Slam main draw in nearly two years, the Canadian threw her head back and let out a scream of pure joy.

"It feels like a dream come true, honestly," Andreescu said afterwards. That's the kind of quote one might expect from a teenager who's just made the Wimbledon main draw for the first time, and indeed Andreescu immediately says the feeling takes her back to 2017, when she did just that. But after winning the US Open in 2019, she never imagined she'd be this happy just to get through qualifying.

"I saw myself being with the big dogs consistently," she said. "That was just what I thought of my capabilities. But then, life sometimes just kicks you in the butt and it's like a detour, right?"

The injuries and illnesses that Andreescu has struggled with this decade have been thoroughly documented. They left her "fearful", in her words, to move or strike the ball as she wanted to. And her comeback kept running aground in Grand Slam qualifying: she lost to Nao Hibino at Roland Garros 2025, Carson Branstine at Wimbledon 2025 and Viktoria Hruncakova at Roland Garros last month. The last time she played a major main draw was at the US Open 2024, and the last time she won a match in one was at Wimbledon two years ago.

"Fourth time's a charm," said the 26-year-old. She can still talk about her career with humor and irony, joking about waiting around in Berlin in vain for a withdrawal, and needing Yulia Putintseva to help get her into the main Wimbledon site to practise this week. But mostly, she's proud that she never gave up, and happy that the fearfulness she once felt in her game has begun to dissipate after a long-awaited 10 months of good health.

Gjorcheska makes history for North Macedonia

Perhaps the longest road to the Wimbledon main draw this week was taken by Lina Gjorcheska. The 31-year-old notched both a personal and national milestone in nerveless fashion, dismissing No. 20 seed Lucia Bronzetti 6-1, 6-2 to become the first player from North Macedonia to reach any Grand Slam main draw.

"Oh my God, it means a lot," Gjorcheska said afterwards. "Maybe at the moment I'm not sure how much, but it a few minutes I will realize for sure. I can say I was being patient, right?"

This is how patient.

Gjorcheska, the daughter of two volleyball players, played her first professional tournament in 2011. A few weeks after her 19th birthday, she played her first Grand Slam qualifying event at the 2016 US Open. At the 2017 Australian Open, she was roared on by the North Macedonian diaspora in Melbourne as she made the final round of qualifying -- as far as she would get in a major until this week. Three months later, she became the first North Macedonian to compete in a WTA main draw as a lucky loser in Biel, falling to eventual champion Marketa Vondrousova in the first round. Nine years later, Wimbledon will mark her second tour-level main draw.

With no national federation support, Gjorcheska carved out a path in professional tennis by herself. There were injuries and financial struggles; there were also 15 ITF singles titles, 47 ITF doubles titles and 13 Grand Slam qualifying appearances. Gjorcheska has appeared in the Top 200 every year since 2023 -- she's currently No. 223 -- but has yet to exceed the career high of No. 170 that she set in 2017.

"Just keep playing and loving the sport, because it's really a beautiful sport," Gjorcheska explained her motivation all these years. "Wimbledon is every kid's dream, right? So I guess that was my push until here."

And, as the first North Macedonian able to extol her country to the tennis world, what would Gjorcheska recommend a visitor do?

"It's a small country, but it's really beautiful," she said. "People are really nice. You have amazing food -- really amazing food. Great wine, if you're a wine lover. And there is this small lake, Ohrid. I mean, for us it's big, but it's small. It's really beautiful, and I think everyone should go there."

New team, new flag and first Wimbledon main draw for Timofeeva

No. 1 seed Maria Timofeeva reached her first Grand Slam main draw since Roland Garros 2024, and first at Wimbledon, with a 3-6, 6-2, 6-1 defeat of wild card Heather Watson. After winning Budapest 2023 and making the 2024 Australian Open fourth round, Timofeeva cracked the Top 100 -- only to slump out of the Top 250 in 2025 as she struggled with minor injuries and expectations.

She's rebounded this year, with a new team based in Frankfurt, a new training regimen and a new flag. Last year, Timofeeva and her family moved to Tashkent, and in October she began playing for Uzbekistan. Her new federation -- including former Top 50 players Iroda Tulyaganova and Akgul Amanmuradova -- has provided invaluable support to her since, and it's shown in her results. Timofeeva has a 26-12 record in 2026, including two WTA 125 titles in Istanbul and Makarska over the past two months, and returned to the Top 100 two weeks ago.

"With my game, I was not ready to show the consistency," Timofeeva recalled of her 2024 slump. "And mentally it was also very overwhelming, putting pressure with all the expectations of the people. I think I overdid it a little bit, obviously, in my own head. It took me, I would say, really all this time just to work on myself and to mentally focus more on the things I do and not what the other people think, and just to find consistency and confidence in my game. And now I think I'm ready to finally be where I am."

Timofeeva plans to celebrate by watching the World Cup with her German team in an English pub -- but they'll have to pay for drinks. She's been a robbery victim twice in the past two years, in Barcelona in 2024 and in Paris last month, losing large sums of money -- and her precious phone -- both times. Her friends have not been as sympathetic as they could have been -- Timofeeva says they've mostly sent her memes about tourists in those cities -- but she's learned her lesson.

"If I go out, I leave my phone, wallet, passports, everything in the hotel," she said firmly.

Other notable Wimbledon qualifiers

Robin Montgomery and Mananchaya Sawangkaew rebounded after injury setbacks cut their 2025 seasons short. 's-Hertogenbosch champion Montgomery extended her winning streak to nine by defeating Marina Bassols Ribera 3-6, 6-1, 6-1, while Sawangkaew saved three match points in a 5-7, 7-5, 6-1 triumph over Oceane Dodin to make her Wimbledon main-draw debut.

In a third-round clash of recent grass-court titlists, No. 2 seed and Ilkley WTA 125 champion Ashlyn Krueger won her eighth straight match by defeating Hurghada ITF W50 winner Polina Iatcenko 7-6(8), 6-1. Krueger saved two set points in the first-set tiebreak.

Three teenagers will make their Wimbledon main-draw debuts: No. 3 seed Alina Korneeva, 19, who routed Fiona Crawley 6-2, 6-0; Serbia's Teodora Kostovic, 18, who defeated No. 30 seed Zhu Lin 6-3, 6-4; and 18-year-old Italian Tyra Caterina Grant, who held off Harmony Tan 6-4, 7-6(5).

No. 539-ranked Mariam Bolkvadze rebounded after losing a 4-2 second-set lead to defeat 18-year-old US Open junior champion Jeline Vandromme 6-4, 4-6, 6-3. Bolkvadze, 28, reached her first Grand Slam main draw since the 2019 US Open, and became just the fourth Georgian to reach the Wimbledon main draw following Leila Meskhi, Anna Tatishvili and Ekaterine Gorgodze. Bolkvadze, competing on a special ranking after suffering multiple hand and hamstring injuries in 2025, is resident in Putney, the London district adjacent to both Roehampton and Wimbledon.

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