Berrettini-Wawrinka at Wimbledon: the serve against time

Matteo Berrettini and Stan Wawrinka had never faced each other in an official match. Their first meeting comes in the Wimbledon first round, on a grass court that amplifies everything that separates the two: a pure grass-court server against a baseline ball-striker from whom this surface has always taken more than it gives. The models make Berrettini a clear favourite, and the reason is not about age. It is technical.

Wawrinka, 41, is playing Wimbledon as a wildcard in his farewell season. Berrettini, ranked 49 and unseeded, remains one of the most dangerous profiles in the draw for exactly what the seeding does not measure: his serving output on grass.

Why grass penalises Wawrinka's backhand

The shot that won Wawrinka three Slams is the one-handed backhand driven on the rise, built on high bounces and long preparation times. The grass at Wimbledon does the opposite: the bounce stays low, the ball arrives sooner, and the one-handed backhand has to be played below net level far more often than Wawrinka would like.

It is no coincidence that at Wimbledon he has never gone beyond the quarterfinals, while he won three majors on medium-to-high bouncing surfaces. On a court where the shot does not rise, the Swiss loses the phase in which he usually turns the rally around: the one where he loads up the down-the-line backhand from a comfortable position.

Against Berrettini's serve, those comfortable positions risk never coming at all.

Berrettini's serve+1 as a game plan

Berrettini's model on grass is the most linear in men's tennis: first serve out wide or into the body, then forehand inside-out on the short reply. On this surface the *serve+1* pattern closes most of his service points within three shots, and against a returner who at 41 covers less court on the diagonal, the angle opened up by the serve becomes decisive.

The question mark over Berrettini is not the opponent, it is his physical condition: the 2026 season has been broken up by injuries, with a record stuck at around fifteen wins and a handful of stoppages due more to physical durability than to the level of his game. But the serve is the shot that suffers least from a lack of matches, and it is also the one that lets him shorten the rallies and avoid dragging the match onto the terrain of physical endurance, where Wawrinka can still do damage over long afternoons.

Wawrinka's path, and what it would take to upset the prediction

A road for the Swiss does exist, and it is only one: return deep and take every game to as many rallies as possible, hoping that Berrettini's serve drops in percentage and that his physical durability is tested over the long haul. Wawrinka remains one of the most solid returners of his generation, and in the games where he manages to deny Berrettini the easy forehand after the first serve, the match can get complicated.

On this surface and with this gap in serving output, Berrettini starts as a clear favourite. The condition that could overturn the prediction is not Wawrinka's level, it is Berrettini's body: if the first serve drops below 60% and the match stretches beyond three sets, the Swiss's experience in tight finishes starts to weigh again. As long as the Italian serves above that threshold, though, the first round should be a non-contest.