Centre Court debut offers tough test for Broady
Having spent much of her season playing second-tier tournaments in obscure parts of China and Japan, Naomi Broady, the British No 3, must have hoped that her wild card into Wimbledon would earn her a favourable draw.
So who did she get? Third seed and two-time major champion Garbine Muguruza.
On the positive side, Broady will make her Centre Court debut. Tradition states that the defending women’s champion leads off the schedule on the first Tuesday, making this comfortably the most prestigious occasion of Broady’s career.
But the counter-argument is that few would expect Broady, a big server with one of the funkier single-handed backhands in the professional game, to trouble the smooth and powerful Muguruza.
The 28-year-old Briton will land £39,000 for being at Wimbledon – titles, 0 slams. She made the semis last year, and the recent Nottingham final. She is coming into form and seems comfortable on grass.
31 Winner (2004)
Russian
24 36 tour titles, 5 slams. She has won here before and could do it again. The draw looks open. She is one of about 24 women who could win. almost doubling her season’s prize money – but her shot at the £63,000 cheque guaranteed to a first-round winner looks a long one.
“It’s obviously a difficult one playing the defending champion in the first round,” said Broady. “But I have had quite a few people coming up to me to say, ‘If you’re going to get her, you want her in the first round, straight off the bat’.
“I am not sure she’ll know all that much about my game. I can research her endlessly, there’s so many videos of her playing online, and I can go and ask countless players that she has played against. I’m sure she’ll find it harder to find certain tactics against me because there’s just simply not the same footage. But I’ve obviously got nothing to lose and it’s going to be an amazing atmosphere.”
These two have met once before but that was all the way back in 2011, when Muguruza was 17. And it happened in the less celebrated setting of Wrexham Tennis Centre, described excitedly on the Lawn Tennis Association’s website as “the only indoor pay-as-you-go tennis centre in north-east Wales”.
As Broady put it last night: “From Wrexham to Centre Court, that’s a bit of a journey. She has been slightly more successful than me.”
So does Broady consider this to be the peak of her tennis life to date? “It is definitely one of the most special matches. A lot of people have just said to go out there, win or lose, and enjoy the moment.”