Wimbledon 2025 has already served up some big shocks, with Italy’s Elisabetta Cocciaretto pulling off a headline-making upset against world No.3 Jessica Pegula in the first round. The 24-year-old Italian, once sidelined by illness, made a stunning comeback on the same grass courts she could only dream about last year.
Last summer, Cocciaretto missed Wimbledon altogether as she recovered from severe pneumonia. Fast forward to this year, and she stepped onto No.2 Court at the All England Club with the determination to change her fortunes — and she did just that by dismantling Pegula 6-2, 6-3 in just 58 minutes. Her serve was rock-solid as she dropped just eight points on serve and converted three breaks, outplaying the reigning US Open finalist who recently won a grass title in Bad Homburg.
Cocciaretto’s triumph set the tone for a string of unexpected early exits in this year’s Championships. On Centre Court, men’s third seed Alexander Zverev was knocked out by Arthur Rinderknech in a five-set thriller that carried over from Monday. Meanwhile, Lorenzo Musetti, the men’s seventh seed, crashed out to Nikoloz Basilashvili in four sets. Women’s fifth seed and Olympic champion Qinwen Zheng also fell victim to the upset trend, losing to Katerina Siniakova in a tough three-set match.
The scale of Cocciaretto’s achievement is even more remarkable given her health struggles just a year ago. After reaching the French Open’s fourth round in 2024 and showing promise on clay, she was struck down by a severe mycoplasma pneumonia infection that left her bedridden for weeks and forced her out of Wimbledon and the Paris Olympics.
Her resilience shone through this season when she reached the semi-finals in s-Hertogenbosch and played deep into the Birmingham Open, despite battling a fever. Now fully fit, Cocciaretto’s impressive form on grass is paying off as she makes her biggest impact yet at a Grand Slam.
For Pegula, the early loss comes as a shock. The American had looked strong heading into Wimbledon, fresh off her Bad Homburg title. But the quick turnaround from winning tune-up events has not translated into success at SW19 in recent years. She joins a growing list of top players who have stumbled early despite strong warm-up performances.
So far, four of the six winners of this season’s pre-Wimbledon grass tournaments in the women’s singles have been knocked out in the first round — a stat that highlights just how unpredictable Wimbledon can be.
As the Italian star put it in her philosophical but heartfelt post-match speech: sometimes you just have to accept what life hands you — and make the most of the moments that come back around. Cocciaretto is doing exactly that at Wimbledon 2025.
