The total prize money at Wimbledon has reached £50m for the first time ahead of the 2024 Championships.

The winner of the men’s and women’s singles titles will take home a record £2.7m each, with the runner-ups earning £1.4m.

The prize money increases round-by-round, starting from £60,000 for reaching the first round – even if you don’t win.

Carlos Alcaraz and Marketa Vondrousova took home a record £2.35m last year, with the prize money for the men’s and women’s singles champion increasing by almost 15 per cent in 2024.

Wimbledon returns to our screens over the next fortnight after a thrilling tournament last year that culminated in Carlos Alcaraz defeating Novak Djokovic in an epic men’s final watched by an audience of over 15 million.

There was a significant change in the BBC’s coverage last year, as Clare Balding succeeded Sue Barker as the face of Wimbledon. Barker had been the BBC’s lead Wimbledon presenter for 30 years.

And there is a controversial addition to the coverage this year, with Nick Kyrgios, the Australian star and Wimbledon runner-up two years ago, joining the BBC to offer commentary while he remains sidelined by injury.

After his lucky break, Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard is making the most of his opportunity at Wimbledon. At 6’8”, the giant Frenchman with a serve that has reached a top speed of 151 mph can appear to tower above the rest of the field at the All England Club in more ways than one: with 105 aces and 196 winners from his three wins so far, he is topping the stat sheets while flying through the tournament.

But what is even more notable against Mpetshi Perricard’s breakthrough is that he wasn’t even supposed to be in the main draw. Beaten in the final round of qualifying, he is the first lucky loser to reach the second week at Wimbledon for 29 years.

The lucky loser has found he has, well, “nothing to lose”. As the top seed in qualifying, Mpetshi Perricard thought his hopes of a Wimbledon debut were over a narrow defeat to compatriot Maxime Janvier. Mpetshi Perricard was left hanging around the locker rooms at the All England Club, holding out for a late withdrawal, when on Sunday night he got the news he was waiting for. He replaced Alejandro Davidovich Fokina in the main draw and took the injured Spaniard’s first-round match against the American seed Korda.

At least Emma Raducanu knew the feeling, of being the unknown, overlooked quantity and stepping onto the big stage to attack with merciless intent. But at Wimbledon, the strategy that won Raducanu the US Open as an 18-year-old qualifier has now been used against her.

As New Zealand player Lulu Sun thundered another crushing forehand winner past Raducanu on Centre Court, the world No 123 advanced to the quarter-finals having started the tournament in the first round of qualifying two weeks ago.

A 6-2, 5-7, 6-2 scoreline illustrates one story from this match, a one-sided first set, a battle in the second, a challenging third after Raducanu slipped on the grass and called a medical timeout that rather stalled her comeback.

But a winners’ count of 52 for Sun to Raducanu’s 19 tells another tale. The Sun, really, was on fire, as the last British player in the singles draw was wiped off Centre Court by a barrage of forehand strikes from the 23-year-old only making her second appearance at a grand slam.

Rune, 21, has beaten Djokovic in two of their five meetings and the confident Dane will fancy his chances of taking down the seven-time champion at Wimbledon. .

Elsewhere, Elena Rybakina is looking strong and the 2022 champion Anna Kalinskaya in a wide-open section of the women’s draw after Yulia Putintsevka knocked out world No 1 Iga Swiatek.

Emma Raducanu said she stands by her decision to withdraw from her Wimbledon mixed-doubles match with Andy Murray after exiting the singles tournament following a three-set defeat to qualifier Lulu Sun.