10 players to keep a close eye on at this year’s Wimbledon

A few familiar names will be missing from Wimbledon this year but the competition is set to be just as fierce for the big titles.

Ashleigh Barty’s retirement means there will be no defending champion in what remains a wide open women’s field, while Novak Djokovic bids for a fourth successive men’s singles title and seventh overall.

Here, the PA news agency picks out 10 players to watch at the All England Club.

Barty’s shock retirement looked set to send the women’s game into another period of flux but instead her successor, 21-year-old Swiatek, has dominated like no one since Williams. The Pole goes into Wimbledon on a 35-match winning streak taking in six titles, including a second grand slam crown at Roland Garros. Swiatek is a former Wimbledon junior champion but is still inexperienced on grass, while a minor shoulder problem has kept her out since Paris.

Tunisian trailblazer Jabeur has had an excellent 12 months since winning the title in Birmingham last summer and then reaching the Wimbledon quarter-finals. She is now up to three in the world rankings after a fine clay-court campaign and then another grass-court title in Berlin last week. Her unorthodox game is well suited to the lawns of SW19 and she will hope to learn from the French Open, when the pressure got to her and she went out in the first round.

Twelve months ago, Raducanu was fresh from completing her A Levels and preparing for a first crack at Wimbledon as a relative unknown. The dizzying speed of the 19-year-old’s rise is still difficult to comprehend, and it would have been hard to know what to expect from her even without the side strain she suffered in Nottingham two weeks ago that has put her participation in doubt. What is not in doubt, though, is