Defending champion Steffi Graf defeated Arantxa Sánchez Vicario in a rematch of the previous year's final, 6–3, 7–5 to win the ladies' singles tennis title at the 1996 Wimbledon Championships.

[1] It was also the second consecutive major final between the two women, with Graf winning the French Open crown over Sánchez Vicario a month earlier.

Kimiko Date reached the semifinals, the last time a Japanese woman would do so at a major until Naomi Osaka in 2018.

Click on the seed number of a player to go to their draw section.

She was replaced in the draw by the highest-ranked non-seeded player Karina Habšudová, who became the #17 seed.