WIMBLEDON DAY 1 PREVIEW

by Karen 

As the day draws nearer for the start of play on Day 1 of The Championships, Wimbledon, there is already controversy on the women's side.  The All England Lawn Tennis Club has chosen to have last year's losing finalist, Sabine Lisicki open Day 2 of the tournament rather than 5 time Wimbledon champion and current World's No. 1 Serena Williams.  There is also speculation that Serena will be relegated to Court No. 2, the Graveyard Court in her opening match seeing as the AELTC is sticking to its tradition of having one women's match and 2 men's match only on  Centre  Court.  On  Court No. 1, current French Open Champion, Maria Sharapova will be playing her first match against British wildcard Samantha Murray. 

I usually don't take a stance on issues such as this as I find it it too tiring to do so, but sometimes I do have to wonder what more does Serena Williams need to do to be afforded just a teensy bit of respect at this particular event.  It is hard not to think all kinds of negative things when the same garbage keeps happening year after everlasting year at Wimbledon.  At some point in time you hope it just stops. 

That being said, I am quite excited for the start of the tournament and while I may miss a few matches, I am going to try my best to watch as many matches as I possibly can.  I don't know whether the AELTC still has the paid streaming serve that they used to have where you could do match catch ups that you missed, but if anyone knows of a paid service other than WatchESPN (which is not available in my country), please do hit me up on Twitter or post in the comments. 

Day 1 features 32 matches from the bottom half of the draw.  The Spin's team picks are in red.  Remember if you are playing TAT's Suicide Pool, you will need to get your picks in by tonight.  

What to Watch:-

Venus Williams going up against up and comer Maria  Teresa Toro-Flor.  Venus needs to be very careful in this match as Toro-Flor, hits the ball well (at least on clay) and has a pretty good serve.  I expect Venus to win this one in straights if she serves and returns as we know she can on grass. 

Yanina Wickmayer and Sam Stosur.  Wickmayer did not really play well in the match that I saw of her in the TopShelf Open. That being said neither did Stosur in  Eastbourne.  This will be a hard fought battle but I expect Wickmayer to pull what may be considered an upset. 

Petra Kvitova going up against her countrywoman Andrea Hlavackova.  It would be good to see whether the hamstring injury that forced Kvitova out of her quarterfinal match against Heather Watson in  Eastbourne has got better with rest.  If not, look for Kvitova to be bundled out in straight sets. 

Court	Player A	Player B
Centre Court	Paula Kania	Na Li
Court 1	Victoria Azarenka	Mirjana Lucic-Baroni
Court 2	Maria Teresa Toro-Flor	Venus Williams
	Andrea Mitu	Aga Radwanska
Court 3	Yanina Wickmayer	Sam Stosur
	Petra Kvitova	Andrea Hlavackova
Court 12	Johana Konta	Shuai Peng
	Caroline Wozniacki	Shahar Peer
Court 18	Sloane Stephens	Maria Kirilenko
	Svetlana Kuznetsova	Michelle Larcher de Brito
Court 8	Mona Barthel	Romina Oprandi
Court 16	Naomi Broady	Timea Babos
	Sara Errani	Caroline Garcia
Court 17	Kimiko Date-Krumm	Ekaterina Makarova
	Kurimi Nara	Anna-Lena Friedsam
Court 4	Elena Vesnina	Patrica Mayr-Achleitner
	Jana Cepelova	Flavia Pennatta
Court 5	Stefanie Voegele	Jarmila Gajdosova
	Teresa Smitkova	Su-Wei Hseih
Court 6	Ana Konjuh	Marina Erakovic
	Vania King	Yvonne Meusberger
Court 7	Polona Hercog	Paula Ormachea
	Lauren Davis	Alisa Kleybanova
	Coco Vandeweghe	Garbine Muguruza
Court 9	Alya Kudryatseva	Barbara Zahlova-Strycova
	Annett Kontaveit	Casey Dellacqua
Court 10	Lucie Safarova	Julia Georges
Court 11	Misaki Doi	Elina Svitolina
	Johanna Larsson	Bojana Jovanovski
Court 19	Monica Nicolescu	Alison Van Uvtyanck
TBA	Alexandra Wozniak	Dominika Cibulkova
TBA	Tsevtana Pironkova	Varvara Lepchenko