Neel, 28, an Estonian-American, was the country's sole representative in the main draws, since top players Mark Lajal and Daniil Glinka failed to qualify, though retired star Anett Kontaveit has also been playing women's doubles – in an invitational round robin contest.

The pair's route to the quarters saw them overcome Eri Hozumi (Japan) and Fang-Hsien Wu (ROC) 6:3, 6:2 in round one, then see off tournament 15th-seeds Ulrikke Eikeri (Norway) and Quinn Gleason (U.S.) in the second round. Eikeri had been a long-standing doubles partner of Neel's, from summer 2023 until after this year's Australian Open in January, and they won two WTA doubles tournaments during that time.

In the next phase, the round of 16, Neel and Olmos met Anna Danilina (Kazakhstan) and Aleksandra Krunic (Serbia) on Monday and despite losing the opening set, prevailed 5:7, 6:4, 6:4 win, to give the Estonian her first ever quarter finals appearance in a grand slam competition.

However, this was the end of the fairytale, as Jiang and Xu raced into a 3-0 lead in the opening set on Thursday secured another break in the sixth game before comfortably taking the first set 6-1. Neel and Olmos however responded in the second, by similarly opening up a 3-0 advantage and eventually winning it 6-2 after converting their sixth set point on their opponents' serve.

Jiang and Xu again took control early in the decider, going 3-1 up, but the Estonian-Mexican duo fought back to level the score. The Chinese pairing, however, broke their opponents serve once more to move 4-3 up; that decisive break proved enough as they sealed victory on their first match point. The entire encounter in SW19 lasted around two hours.

In the semifinals, Jiang and Xu will face the 10th-seeded pairing of China's Gu Hanyu and France's Kristina Mladenovic, who upset the tournament's top seeds, Czech-American duo Katerina Siniakova and Taylor Townsend, 7-6 (8), 7-5 in their quarter-final clash.

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