Wimbledon ladies singles draw
Originally published on: 22/06/12 00:00
The draw for the Ladies Singles took place Friday morning at the All England Club. The top half of the draw sees top seed Maria Sharapova up against Australia’s Anastasia Rodionova, No. 3 seed Agnieszka Radwanska against Magdalena Rybarikova and Sam Stosur, seeded 5, pitted against Carla Suarez Navarro.
In the top half, matches are played on Monday; with some standout ties. Most notable has to be Kim Clijsters against fellow former world No.1 Jelena Jankovic. No doubt news filtered through to the Belgian, who is still playing in the Unicef Open in ‘s-Hertogenbosch, where she has reached the semi-finals. Clijsters who has been away from the tour with injury is not seeded at Wimbledon for the first time since 2000. The other dangerous player without a seeding in the top half of the draw is Venus Williams. The five-time Wimbledon champion will play 25-year-old Russian Elena Vesnina currently ranked 83 in the world.
There are some fascinating tussles between some of the younger players, with Christina McHale playing British hopeful and wildcard Johanna Konta, while Timea Babos plays Melanie Oudin and 29-year-old Iveta Benesova will square off against 20-year-old Brit Heather Watson.
A couple of other matches that caught the eye in the top half of the draw is the all-Italian tie of Flavia Pennetta against qualifier Camila Giorgi, Vera Zvonareva against rising German Mona Barthel and Petra Martic against Sabine Lisicki.
The bottom half of the draw, which contains No.2 seed Victoria Azarenka, 2011 defending Champion Petra Kvitova and No.6 seed Serena Williams, will play on Tuesday.
Stand by to see Britain’s Anne Keothavong take on Spain’s Laura Pous-Tio, and 18-year-old Laura Robson up against 2010 French Open champion Francesca Schiavone and Elena Baltacha against Karin Knapp.
Serena Williams will play Barbora Zahalova Strycova, Azarenka plays Irina Falconi, Ana Ivanovic, seeded 14 against Spain’s Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez and Marion Bartoli against Australia’s Casey Dellacqua. Former world No. 1 Caroline Wozniacki takes on Tamira Paszek of Austria.
Based on recent slams, the women’s seedings have not always proved to be a good guide of who will progress to the later rounds and with Clijsters and Venus lurking in the top half, it's set to be a fascinating fortnight.
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