Defending champ Vondrousova can't 'shake off' nerves in Wimbledon exit

One year after becoming the first unseeded woman to win the Wimbledon title, Marketa Vondrousova became the first defending champion in 30 years to lose in the first round. 

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No.83 Jessica Bouzas Maneiro earned her first Wimbledon win by powering past Vondrousova to win 6-4, 6-2 in just 67 minutes. 

"It's tough to go out defending the title," Vondrousova told reporters. "I was really nervous from the morning and everything."

2022 Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina could relate. In the opening match of her title defense last year, Rybakina dropped the first set to Shelby Rogers before steeling herself to take the next two. She went on to make the quarterfinals, where she led Jabeur by a set but lost in three.

"I think every match you go, you're quite nervous," Rybakina said after her first-round win over Elena Gabriela Ruse. "Of course, you want to repeat the result. Maybe sometimes expectations are too big.

"It's like in the end of the day you are fighting kind of against yourself every day. I think it's normal to be nervous in the end."

In the run-up to Wimbledon, Vondrousova was working to prepare herself for her return to the All England Club. She invited her mother and sister to be there for her ceremonial return to Centre Court, where the defending ladies' champion historically opens play on Day 2 of The Championships. 

And she had been playing well, too. After training at the one reasonably good grass court in Prague, Vondrousova looked sharp in her grass-court debut at the ecotrans Ladies Open. She bamboozled Rebekah Mazsarova 6-4, 6-3 in the second round and was rolling against Anna Kalinskaya in the second round, leading 5-3 in the first set. 

That's where it all fell apart for Vondrousova, who said the key to her Wimbledon breakthrough last year was finally figuring out her footwork on the grass. Vondrousova lost her footing mid-rally and crumbled to the turf. Two games later, she retired with a right hip injury and was racing the clock to be fit for Wimbledon.

Vondrousova did not blame the injury or her fitness for the loss. But it certainly added an extra element of stress and doubt at a time when she needed neither.

"I played good in Paris," Vondrousova said. "I also felt good in Berlin. Then I did the injury, so I didn't play for a couple days. Here practice was good. Matches, always different.

"Today I was really nervous since the start. I couldn't maybe shake it off. Also she was playing good. I didn't have many chances to come back to the match or she didn't give me much free points also. Yeah, credits to her."

More from Wimbledon:

• Grass-court Power Rankings: Who thrives on the turf?
• The feel-good stories of the grass season so far
• Is grass-court tennis the trickest surface on the tour?
  
• Familiar faces: Barty, Sharapova return to Wimbledon with their sons
• Gauff, Osaka, Raducanu? Who will come through the wide-open bottom half?
• Raducanu taking inspiration from England's run at the Euros

Enigmatic and soft-spoken, Vondrousova thrives in the shadows. She is a canny and talented competitor and has proven she is no flash-in-the-pan champion. Wimbledon wasn't even her first Grand Slam final. She ticked off that box in 2019 at Roland Garros and followed that up two years later by winning silver at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. 

But as Vondrousova learned, defending a title is a different challenge than winning one. 

"I feel like even if you don't want to think about it, you just think about it all the time here," Vondrousova said. "I see posters here and everything, my name everywhere.

"It was an amazing feeling to go back on the Centre Court. The match was very tough. Now it's like mixed feelings. I love to be here. I would love to stay longer also."