e_Paper, Monday, July 03, 2017

20
MONDAY, JULY 3, 2017
DT
Sports
Roger Federer takes part in a training session at Wimbledon tennis club in southwest London on Saturday prior to the start of the tournament on July 3
Federer poised for record Wimbledon triumph
• AFP, London
Twelve months after
shutting down his season
in the wake of a
devastating semi-final
defeat, Roger Federer
returns to Wimbledon as favourite
to capture a record-breaking eighth
title and become the tournament’s
oldest champion.
The evergreen Swiss, who turns
36 in August, has stunned the critics
who wrote him off as yesterday’s
man when he went down to
Milos Raonic in five gruelling sets
on Centre Court in 2016.
The loss forced him off tour for
the remainder of the year to rest a
knee injury, leaving his Grand Slam
title count on 17 where it had been
since 2012.
Fast forward a year and Federer
is poised to break the tie for seven
Wimbledon titles he shares with
Pete Sampras and take his career
tally at the majors to 19.
With eternal rivals Andy Murray
and Novak Djokovic in slumps of
varying degrees, and Rafael Nadal
fretting over whether or not his
knees will bear the stress of grass
courts, it is Federer once again in
the box seat.
Federer, who captured a fifth
Australian Open in January, will go
into Wimbledon buoyed by a ninth
title on the grass of Halle and refreshed
by skipping the claycourt
season.
However, he will not write off
his three major rivals with whom
he has shared all the Wimbledon
titles since his maiden triumph in
2003.
AFP
“If Andy is anything close to
100% physically, I consider him
one of the big favourites to win. It’s
that simple. It’s the same for Novak
and the same for Rafa,” said Federer
who will start his Wimbledon
campaign against Alexander Dolgopolov
of Ukraine.
“I think it’s very even when we
put it all out on the line. Everybody
has their own little story right now.”
For tennis storylines of 2017,
Federer shares top billing with Nadal
after the Spaniard defied the doubters
to win a 10th French Open. •
Wimbledon braced for new women’s shock
• AFP, London
With Serena Williams
preparing for the birth
of her first child and
Maria Sharapova sidelined
by a thigh injury,
the race to be crowned Wimbledon
champion is the most wide-open in
a generation.
Having stepped away from the
court as she waits to become a
mother in September, Williams,
who won Wimbledon in 2015 and
2016, has created a power vacuum
at the top that Sharapova was expected
to fill when the Russian returned
from her doping suspension.
Instead, Sharapova lasted just
three tournaments before a muscle
injury in Rome forced the five-time
major winner to withdraw from the
Wimbledon qualifying tournament.
In the absence of American
great Williams, who has 23 Grand
Slam titles on her CV, and the headline-grabbing
Sharapova, women’s
tennis has an undeniable lack of star
power heading into Wimbledon,
which gets underway on Monday.
But the flip-side is the opportunity
for the sport’s less heralded
names to seize the spotlight, as
Latvia’s Jelena Ostapenko showed
with her unexpected breakthrough
triumph at the French Open.
“Of course, it’s different if Serena
is not here. Everything is possible, in
two weeks especially,” world number
one Angelique Kerber said. “There
are so many good players right now,
they can win the big tournaments.”
Ostapenko, 20, shot up to 13th in
the world from 47th after coming
from a set and 3-0 down to defeat
Simona Halep in the Roland Garros
final. Now she has to prove that
stunning success was more than a
flash in the pan.
A junior Wimbledon champion in
2014, Ostapenko’s game is well suited
for the low-bouncing lawns of the
All England Club, now that she has
learned to enjoy a surface she once
thought was only “for soccer”.
While Ostapenko, who faces
Aliaksandra Sasnovich in the first
round, arrived in London on a
wave of post-Paris euphoria, second
seed Halep is still struggling to
come to terms with her failure to
win her first Grand Slam.
Three games away from the title
and the world number one ranking,
Halep crumbled to her second major
final defeat -- the other coming
at the 2014 French Open.
Murray fit for
Wimbledon
title defence
• AFP, London
Andy Murray insisted he is fit
enough to start the defence of his
Wimbledon title on Monday despite
his recent struggles with a hip
injury.
Murray sparked concerns he
might have to withdraw from Wimbledon
after cancelling two scheduled
exhibition matches this week
due to his sore hip.
The world number one was seen
limping while practising at Wimbledon
over the weekend, but he is
convinced he can make it through
two weeks of the grass court Grand
Slam.
“I’ll be fine to play the event and
play seven matches,” Murray told
reporters at Wimbledon on Sunday.
Murray, a two-time Wimbledon
champion, will play the first match
on Centre Court on Monday against
Kazakhstan’s Alexander Bublik.
That will be a huge lift for Murray,
who admitted he had been
worried the hip pain wouldn’t ease
off in time for Wimbledon.
“You never know. I haven’t been
in that sort of position too often,
only a few days before a Slam and
not felt good at all,” he said.
“Obviously this is an extremely
important tournament, so you worry
a little bit. It’s a little bit stressful
if you can’t practise for a few days.
“You really want to be preparing,
training as much as you can to
get ready and make you feel better,
especially when you hadn’t had
any matches.
“I just tried to think positively.
I tried to make the best decisions
along with my team to give myself
the best chance to feel good on
Monday. I feel like I’ve done that.”
Facing world number 134 Bublik
should be a gentle introduction to
the tournament for Murray, who is
desperately short of match practice
on grass after a shock Queen’s Club
first-round loss against unheralded
Australian Jordan Thompson. •
The 25-year-old Romanian, who
has never been past the semi-finals
at Wimbledon, opens her campaign
against Marina Erakovic.
Kerber, who starts against Irina
Falconi, needs to improve dramatically
after making unwanted history
when her defeat against Ekaterina
Makarova made her the first
top-ranked woman in the Open era
to fall in the opening round at Roland
Garros.
Beaten by Serena in the Wimbledon
final 12 months ago, Kerber,
who won the Australian and US
Opens last year, has yet to claim a
single WTA title in 2017. •