The road to New York: where tennis goes after Wimbledon

The Wimbledon lawns have barely been cleared and the tour has already moved on — back, briefly, to clay. The six weeks between now and New York run through Scandinavia, the Alps and the Adriatic before the hard courts of North America take over. Here is the map.

This week: a European clay interlude

Three ATP 250s are underway. At the Nordea Open in Båstad (13-19 July), Luciano Darderi defends his 2025 title in a field that includes Andrey Rublev and freshly minted top-10 player Flavio Cobolli. In Gstaad, the EFG Swiss Open (13-19 July) has gathered two-time champion Casper Ruud, Stefanos Tsitsipas, defending champion Alexander Bublik — and Stan Wawrinka, 41, chasing one last home title after his emotional Wimbledon farewell. All three Swiss wildcards went to home players: Kym, Stricker and Feldbausch.

In Umag (13-18 July), Darderi is also the reigning champion — the Italian won both Båstad and Umag last summer. Next week the clay swing peaks in Kitzbühel (18-25 July), where the Generali Open boasts its strongest field in 15 years, with a cut at world No. 68, Cobolli making his debut and Bublik defending the title. Kitzbühel also stages a WTA 125 event this week — the first women's tennis in the Tyrolean town for 33 years.

Late July: Prague and Washington

The WTA's next tour stop is a 250 in Prague on hard courts (20-26 July), headlined by Barbora Krejčíková and Maria Sakkari. Then the North American summer begins in earnest at the Mubadala DC Open in Washington (27 July-2 August), a combined 500 whose entry lists feature Alex de Minaur, Taylor Fritz, Marta Kostyuk and Venus Williams, with Leylah Fernandez defending the women's title.

August: a Canadian Open split in two

The first Masters 1000 of the swing runs from around 1 to 13 August, and this year the Canadian Open sends the men to Montreal and the women to Toronto. Ben Shelton returns as men's defending champion; women's champion Victoria Mboko faces a fight to defend at all, with a knee injury leaving her participation in doubt. Montreal will also host the next chapter of Gaël Monfils' farewell season — the 39-year-old, denied a Wimbledon wildcard and nursing a knee problem, has been handed one by the Canadian event.

The Alcaraz question

Hanging over it all is the sport's most conspicuous absentee. Carlos Alcaraz has not played since April because of a right wrist injury, missed Wimbledon entirely and has slipped to No. 3 behind Alexander Zverev. No return date has been confirmed — and every week he misses, the points gap grows.

The destination is fixed either way: the next Grand Slam is the US Open in New York, and the weeks in between — from the clay of Båstad to the hard courts of Montreal — will decide who arrives there with momentum.