Wimbledon 2026: Draw, schedule, seeds, wildcards and TV coverage

Wimbledon is back for 2026 as the world’s best tennis players gather in London to compete in the most prestigious tournament in the sport.

World No1 Jannik Sinner is the defending champion in the men’s singles while Iga Swiatek won last year’s women’s singles title.

But there will be no Carlos Alcaraz, with the 2023 and 2024 winner missing the tournament with a wrist injury.

Emma Raducanu will also be absent from Wimbledon with the British star pulling out with a stress fracture in her foot.

The Championships always serve up a number of interesting storylines and there a number of British players to keep an eye on in SW19 this year.

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Here’s everything you need to know about Wimbledon 2026 including the start date, how to watch on TV, draw information and the full schedule of play.

Wimbledon will start on Monday, June 29 and will end with the men’s singles final on Sunday, July 12.

The tournament will run for 14 days straight, with the ‘Middle Sunday’ rest day scrapped back in 2022.

The BBC remains the principal broadcaster of Wimbledon and you can follow all the action for free on BBC One, BBC Two and BBC iPlayer.

In previous years, both the BBC and Eurosport have shown the singles finals but in 2026 it will be the BBC and TNT Sports broadcasting them.

Clare Balding will lead the BBC’s presenting team and you can expect to see the likes of Tim Henman, John McEnroe and Martina Navratilova working on their coverage.

Serena Williams, fresh from her return to tennis, is unquestionably the biggest name to be handed a wildcard, with the 23-time Grand Slam winner also featuring in the doubles with sister Venus.

French Open runner-up Maja Chwalinska is also a beneficiary, as are Britishstars Harriet Dart, Alicia Dudeney, Hannah Klugman, Mika Stojsavljevic, Katie Swan and Mimi Xu.

Five of the wildcards in the men’s singles have gone to British players; Jacob Fearnley, Arthur Fery, Jack Pinnington Jones, Toby Samuel and Harry Wendelken.

The other two, meanwhile, have gone to Grigor Dimitrov and Stan Wawrinka.

Once the tournament is underway, the official Order of Play will be released each evening at approximately 6pm, although it can be subject to change.

The Order of Play can be located on Wimbledon’s official website here.

A record total of £64.2m in prize money will be awarded to players at Wimbledon 2026.

It should be noted that the majority of tickets for Centre Court and the No.1 Court are unavailable because the public Wimbledon ballot has closed.

But spectators are still able to use the famous Wimbledon queue every day to try and get a grounds pass or tickets to one of the show courts.

If you reach the front of the queue and there are only grounds passes left, fans can try the ticket resale kiosk once inside the grounds, located north of Court 18, who sell a number of resale tickets for the show courts.

After the gates open each day at 10am, play is provisionally scheduled to start on outside courts at 11am. On the No.1 Court, play starts at 1pm and on Centre Court, play starts at 1.30pm.

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