It’s been a long two years but once again tennis world will gather for its traditional summer visit to the grass courts of The All England Lawn Tennis Club for The Championships, Wimbledon.  Play will commence tomorrow, Monday, June 28, with action across all 18 courts live and exclusive to ESPN platforms.  Matches on ESPN, ESPN Deportes and on the ESPN App will start at 6 a.m. ET.  

Two-time defending champion and world No. 1 Novak Djokovic will begin his quest for the third leg of a calendar year Grand Slam – and a tie for men’s record of 20 career Major titles) by opening Centre Court at 8:30 a.m.  His opponent is Jack Draper of Great Britain, a 19-year-old left-hander.  Following that match, American Sloane Stephens will take the big stage to face No. 10 and two-time winner Petra Kvitova, followed by fan favorite Andy Murray, a two-time champ, against No. 24 Nikoloz Basilashvili.  

Other featured matches on the planned 10.5-hour telecast (switches to ESPN2 at 11:30 a.m.) include American No. 23 Madison Keys vs. Katie Swan, No. 2 Aryna Sabalenka vs. Monica Niculescu, American No. 4 Sofia Kenin vs. Xinyu Wang, No. 3 Stefanos Tsitsipas vs. American Frances Tiafoe and No. 10 Denis Shapovalov vs. Philipp Kohlschreiber. 

Some of the top matches on ESPN+ include five-time champion Venus Williams vs. Mihaela Buzarnescu (fourth on No. 2 Court), the 2017 champion No. 11 Garbiñe Muguruza vs. Fiona Ferro (first on No. 2), American Denis Kudla vs No. 30 Alejandro Davidovich Fokina (first on Court 7), No. 5 Andre Rublev vs. Federico Delbonis, American Mackenzie McDonald vs. No. 25 Karen Khachanov (second on Court 5), 6’11” American No. 27 Reilly Opelka vs. Dominik Koepfer (second on Court 14), Madison Brengle vs. Christina McHale in a battle of Americans (second on Court 16), American No. 22 Jessica Pegula vs. Caroline Garcia (third on Court 4), American No. 28 Alison Riske vs. Tereza Martincova (third on Court 11) and highly touted 20-year-old American Sebastian Korda vs. No. 15 Alex de Minaur (fourth on Court 14, not before 12 p.m. ET).  

The fortnight of action will climax with the Ladies’ Championship and the Gentlemen’s Doubles Championship on ESPN on Saturday, July 10, and the Gentlemen’s Championship on Sunday, July 11, followed by the Ladies’ Doubles Championship and the Mixed Doubles Championship.   

First Week Highlights:  All Day, Daily Coverage across TV, ESPN+ and ESPN3 

• The first five weekdays, ESPN begins at 6 a.m. ET for daylong coverage (transitioning to ESPN2 at 11:30 a.m. on Monday, Tuesday and Friday), scheduled to end at 4:30 p.m.  The action also gets started live at 6 a.m. streaming on ESPN+ and ESPN3. 
• The ESPN App will be the all-in-one streaming home for Wimbledon, with ESPN and ESPN2 telecasts and the matches streaming on ESPN+ and ESPN3. Combined, the app will stream more than 500 matches in the two weeks, totaling 1,500 hours from all 18 courts (Centre, Courts 1-12, 14-18.), plus AELTC’s daily The Wimbledon Channel and an all-day feed with press conferences from the media centre at the All England Club. Matches will also be available on demand afterwards.   
• On Saturday, July 3, ESPN begins at 7 a.m. with the one-hour Breakfast at Wimbledon before another day full of action (11:30 a.m. – 2 p.m. will be on ESPN2).  
• On the “middle Sunday,” July 4 – the last edition of Wimbledon’s traditional day of rest before a new schedule commences in 2022 – ABC will broadcast a three-hour review of the first week at 3 p.m.  In addition, ABC will present encore presentations of the singles championships on the day they take place, July 10 and 11, at 3 p.m. 

ESPN & WIMBLEDON 2021, First Week 

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