Class on Wimbledon grass
Murray in a hurry for a hat-trick, Kerber can’t curb her enthusiasm
ANDY Murray will begin the defence of his Wimbledon title against a qualifier after the draw was made for the third Grand Slam of the year at the All England Club yesterday.
The Scot, who is bidding to win Wimbledon for a third time, was drawn in the same half as two-time champion Rafael Nadal, with three-time winner Novak Djokovic and seven-time champion Roger Federer placed in the bottom half.
Women’s world No 1 Angelique Kerber also opens up against a qualifier and is seeded to face Karolina Pliskova in the semi-finals.
Murray, whose preparations have been hampered by a sore hip, will open the men’s event on Monday.
The world No 1 could play flamboyant German Dustin Brown in the second round, with Australian Nick Kyrgios a potential fourth-round opponent.
Should the seedings go to plan, the top seed will play Stan Wawrinka in the quarter-finals before taking on Nadal, the champion in 2008 and 2010.
Federer will begin his quest for an open-era men’s record eighth title with a match against world No 84 Alexandr Dolgopolov of Ukraine.
The Swiss, who won the warm-up event in Halle, is seeded to face 27th seed Mischa Zverev of Germany in the third round, with Bulgaria’s Grigor Dimitrov (13) likely to be waiting in the last 16.
Milos Raonic, who beat him in the semi-finals last year, is Federer’s scheduled opponent in the quarter-finals, before a likely semi-final against Djokovic.
French Open champion Nadal, who has not gone past the fourth round at Wimbledon since 2011, plays Australia’s John Millman in round one and is seeded to face former US Open champion Marin Cilic in the fourth round.
Djokovic plays Martin Klizan of Slovakia in his firstround match and could face Argentina’s Juan Martin Del Potro, the former US Open winner and 29th seed, in the third round.
With the defending women’s champion Serena Williams taking time out to give birth to her first child, last year’s runner-up Kerber will open her campaign on Tuesday.
The German is slated to face big-serving Czech Pliskova, the runner-up at the US Open last year, in the last four.
The other semi-final could be a repeat of the French Open final between surprise winner Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia and Romania’s Simona Halep.
Two-time champion Petra Kvitova, who won the warm-up event in Birmingham just six months after the Czech was attacked by a knife-wielding intruder in her home, is also in the bottom half and plays Johanna Larsson of Sweden in the first round.
With Serena Williams absent and a failure by any of the other top women to produce the kind of dominance the American seven-time champion has consistently delivered makes this year’s Wimbledon the most open in years.
“It is pretty open, you see the results of the tournaments you just can’t pick a winner because you never know what to expect, who is going to have the better week or two,” world No 9 Dominika Cibulkova said.
“It is about who is going to be the most consistent, solid and have the luck,” the Slovakian added.
Such is the absence of a clear favourite, that the bookmaker’s current choice, Petra Kvitova, would have to produce one of the most remarkable comebacks the sport has ever seen to claim her third Wimbledon title.
In December, her career was hanging by a thread after she was knifed during a break-in at her house in the Czech Republic, suffering serious tendon damage to her left hand.
The 27-year-old returned to action at the French Open last month and suffered a second round defeat on the Parisian clay, but the two-time Wimbledon champion, who triumphed in 2011 and 2014, clearly loves grasscourt tennis.
Despite playing down her chances and talking only of getting back into the groove, she stormed to the title in a warm-up event at Edgbaston last week, showing the kind of tennis that makes her such a formidable opponent on the quickest surface.
Yet it was typical of the current state of the women’s game that even Kvitova’s re-emergence had a modicum of doubt cast over it when she withdrew from this week’s event at Eastbourne with an abdominal strain.
“I showed myself that I can play five matches in six days, but now I need a bit to relax to be ready. I know how tough it is to win a Grand Slam, so I’m not really seeing myself as one of the favourites right now,” she said.
Her compatriot, Karolina Pliskova, has had a strong year and will be expected to make a deep run, the tall, big-hitter filling the role usually occupied by Russia’s Maria Sharapova, whose return from a drugs ban has been stalled by injury.
Pliskova made her Grand Slam breakthrough with a run to the US Open final last year, beating Serena along the way, and followed up by making the quarter-finals in Australia and claiming two tour titles before going to the French Open.
There she reached the last four and was only a painful semi-final defeat by Simona Halep away from becoming the world No1.
However, Pliskova’s record at the All England Club is poor and she has never advanced past the second round at Wimbledon in five main-draw appearances.
There are also local hopes that Johanna Konta could be the first British winner since Virginia Wade in 1977 after a year in which she has established herself in the top 10 and enjoyed her biggest tournament win at the Miami Open in March. – Reuters