There’s always a big percentage of unpredictability in Women’s Tennis. Let’s take a look at what may or may not happen over next 2 weeks starting with the top half of the draw.
World No.1 and 20 time Grand Slam Champion Serena Williams leads the pack of the Draw. She hasn’t played since winning Roland Garros 3 weeks ago. No preparation tournaments on Grass, as she comes here in London trying to win Wimbledon for 6-th time. If she wins it will also mark the 2nd time that Serena has won 4 Grand Slams in a row – she first did it over a decade ago by winning the 2002 French Open, 2002 Wimbledon, 2002 US Open and 2003 Australian Open. She would be the second woman in the Open Era to do it twice, after Steffi Graf did it in ’88-’89 and then ’93-’94.
“I haven’t done great at Wimbledon the past two years, so I’m going to take it a day at a time there. My goal is just to do better there than I have the last couple of years, do one more and one more and one more. That’s the one I have been struggling at, so hopefully I will be able to play a little better there.
“I mean, it’s perfect for my game.”
Her last 2 years of action here indeed haven’t been great. In 2013 she fell to future finalist Sabine Lisicki in R4 and last year one round earlier to Alize Cornet. She starts against a promising young player in Margarita Gasparyan, who went through qualies, on Monday and could face up against her sister Venus in R4. Serena leads Venus h2h 14-11, their first meeting 17 years ago. Given the fact that Venus has won the tournament 4 times, this could be interesting encounter to say the least.
9-th seed Carla Suarez Navarro and 7-th seed Ana Ivanovic are on course to meet in a potential R4 match with the winner taking on Serena in the next round. Those two are the highest seeds that the American could potentially face in the Quarter Final, but before that they would have to put aside some tricky opposition in this part of the draw. Carla has a quite bad record on this surface currently standing at 15-13 and has made it to R4 only once in her career, in 2013. She starts with 2014 Wimbledon Junior Champion Jelena Ostapenko, a 18 year old Latvian and a promising talent. The 23rd seed Victoria Azarenka is the Spaniard 3-rd round eventual opponent. The Belarussian is still trying to find her form back after making it to No.1 in 2012 – last year she was fighting personal issues and injuries. She dropped to rank 49 but has steadily progressed. Always fiercely competitive she will look to go deep while at least trying to match her 2012 SF appearance, her best one to date.
Belinda Bencic, who have just won Eastbourne for her maiden title after bagelling Agnieszka Radwanska in the 3-rd set. She however comes here with some strapping on her right thigh after suffering a heavy fall during her quarter-final against Johanna Konta but the 18-year-old from Switzerland said that it is not a serious issue.
“I think it’s just a muscle that is a little bit stretched, but I think it’s a normal thing with a tennis player,” the world No31 said. “I’m totally fine. It’s no pain.”
The Swiss is first seeded opponent that Ana Ivanovic’s could face in R3. However she has to fend off Tsvetana Pironkova, a former semifinalist in Wimbledon 5 years ago, in order to get there. Ivanovic, a semifinalist here 8 years ago has had up and down grass showings over the years with only a Birmingham title from last year worth to mention. She hasn’t won a match on this surface this year as she failed to defend her title losing her 1st match 2 weeks ago to Larcher De Brito.
The bottom part of the top half of the draw has the 4-th seed and Wimbledon Champion from 11 years ago Maria Sharapova and 6-th seed and Roland Garros Finalist Lucie Safarova. Probably revenge match looming from just 2 months ago, as the Czech was the one that ended Maria’s run to defend her title in Paris in the 4-th round of the competition. The Russian has a potentially tricky opponent in R1, especially when she comes with no official grass court matches this year, in face of Johanna Konta. The British wildcard participated in all 3 events leading up to Wimbledon and scored wins against the likes of Garbine Muguruza and Ekaterina Makarova. Despite from all 3, she had only 1 QF it’s safe to say that meeting an opponent with so many matches in recent weeks on that surface is not a good thing. Highest seed Maria could face in R4 is the 14-th one – Andrea Petkovic .
Lucie Safarova starts off with Alison Riske and could face Barbora Strycova in R3. But first Barbora, needs to get through R1 as she faces the Eastbourne SF-ist from last week Sloane Stephens. The big hitting Birmingham finalist Karolina Pliskova, is a potential threat in this Czech invasion part of the draw.
A full list of previews for each match can be found here.
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