At Wimbledon qualifying, Alizé Cornet 'closes the loop' after 18 years

Eighteen years after her first taste of Wimbledon in Roehampton, Alizé Cornet returns to the site of her qualifying debut for one last swing at the grass, and finds the farewell she didn’t know she needed.

ROEHAMPTON, London -- Wimbledon qualifying holds a distinctive place in the tennis calendar. Unlike the other majors, The Championships stage their preliminary competition not at the All England Club, but four kilometers away in Roehampton, where 18 grass courts tucked into a community sports center host 256 hopefuls each year.

With facilities set up in tents and spectators milling around on the grass, players frequently say it doesn't feel like Wimbledon -- sometimes out of frustration, sometimes as a motivation to get to the real thing. But in order to reach the most historic stage of the sport, they have to return to their roots.

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This year, that's true on more than one level for Alizé Cornet, who describes Roehampton as "a fight in a field." At Roland Garros 13 months ago, the Frenchwoman called time on a storied career -- only to feel pangs of regret while watching Wimbledon on TV. She had said farewell to her home crowd, but not her beloved grass courts, the surface on which she had scored some of her biggest wins. In March this year, after just nine months away, Cornet announced her comeback from retirement.

"The main reason I came back was to play one more time on grass," she said after defeating Victoria Jimenez Kasintseva in the second round this week.

Cornet first played in Roehampton in 2007, a chaotic stretch that featured two three-setters, a 14–12 tiebreak defeat, and a lucky-loser spot in the main draw. It’s no wonder she remembers it clearly.

"I was 17," she said. "I remember beating [Monica] Niculescu, because she was a pain in the ass to play. I was so happy to beat her. Then I lost to [Olga] Govortsova, a very good grass-court player. But I remember the moment they told me I was a lucky loser. I was first or second and I was so excited to be part of my first main draw in Wimbledon."

Cornet pauses, contemplating the 18 years that have since passed.

"All the way between that Roehampton qualies and now -- being back here is just like I'm closing the loop."

Part of Cornet’s comeback was about finding joy in the game again, and since returning, she has.

"I stopped tennis for some reasons that were gone after nine months of break," she said. "All the expectations, all the pressure I put on myself, all the perfectionism and all the stress and all the bad reasons you don't want to lose. This is what I missed the most in the last two years of my career, having fun on the court.

"What I missed the most was the adrenaline -- but having fun in this adrenaline. I've found the balance. I have it now, and I didn't have it before. Now that I have it again, I feel I'm 100% in my goals."

Using a special ranking of No. 102, Cornet ended up just three spots outside direct entry to the main draw. As a player whose defining wins have been her pair of No. 1 victories on No. 1 Court -- over Serena Williams in 2014 and Iga Swiatek in 2022 -- one might have expected the 35-year-old to have her heart set on one last big-stage moment. Not so.

"Yes, I was used to playing Grand Slam main draws -- for 69 tournaments in a row!" she said, drawing unprompted attention to the record she holds for the most such consecutive competitions. "It doesn't matter, because I think I'm humble enough to enjoy playing these qualies. I love the game, and I don't care if I play it in a $25,000 somewhere in the ass of the world, or if I play it in Wimbledon on Centre Court.

"I still have a really strong child soul inside. When it comes to play -- well, I'm there!"

Cornet will not get her main-draw farewell, as it turns out. In the final round of qualifying, she fell 7-5, 6-1 to her 22-year-old compatriot, Elsa Jacquemot. And while she will not be drawn on her plans for the rest of this year, she's certain this was her final Wimbledon. As someone who has written three novels, Cornet might have been tempted by an epilogue to her career, but she also knows when an ending feels right.

"It's now, it's here in qualies," she said. "It's the perfect last chapter. This would be the actual perfect ending. Here."

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