Wimbledon looks ahead with main courts used as practice courts

IN AS much as the All England Lawn Tennis Club are nostalgically looking back in celebrating 100 years of Wimbledon, they appear equally keen to use the occasion to showcase their eagerness to move forward.

A new precedent has been set, in an effort to mitigate the number of injuries players suffer from falling on the grass, as they did in the early rounds of last year’s tournament, not least of all Serena Williams.

The two main courts have been allocated as practice courts for players “to play them in”, and Rafa Nadal had the honour of being the first player in history to step onto the Centre Court for a hit, rather than an official match.

British No 1, Emma Raducanu, was equally privileged to be given a practice bout with former Wimbledon champion Garbine Muguruza on Court No 1, on Friday.

However Raducanu cancelled, still nursing her “freak” injury acquired at Nottingham, when forced to retire in Round One a week ago.

This doesn’t bode well for Raducanu’s AELTC campaign, where she is due to play Alison Van Utyvanck tomorrow.

Fortunately for British tennis, two other British teenagers have received wild cards.

Both Jodie Burrage and Katie Boulter performed admirably at Eastbourne, Burrage beating fourth seed Paula Badosa and Boulter conquered former Australian Open semi-finalist Katerina Pliskova’s

while serve volleying like demons and showing the killer instinct reminiscent of Raducanu.

Even more progressively, since 2021 a new seeding system has been introduced based on current world rankings, as opposed to the old surface-based system.

Interestingly, since 1927 no unseeded player has won the ladies’ singles, whereas two unseeded players have won the men’s singles – Boris Becker (now in jail for hiding financial assets) in 1985 and Goran Ivanisevic (now coaching defending champion Novak Djokovic).

In the absence of the proverbial “King of Grass”, Federer, all eyes will be on Djokovic, still attempting to catch up to Nadal, the GOAT with 23 singles Slams.

Nadal, according to his coach Carlos Moya, is intent on beating Djokovic to winning four Majors within a calendar year, with two already under his belt in 2022 – the Australian and the French.

What will be of slight concern to Moya, is that Nadal was beaten in the Georgia Armani Exhibition at Hurlingham by Tony Nadal’s new charge, Canadian Felix Auger-aliassime, who outdid him in tiebreaks.

How often have we seen finals come down to tiebreaks, and invariably it is the opponent consistently unleashing lethal first serves that prevails.

Once again Nadal has a soft draw at Wimbledon.

He is not in the same quarter as either Djokovic, Casper Ruud, Carlos Alcaraz or Stefanos Tsitsipas, yet ironically the biggest threat in his section is none other than Auger-aliassime.

Djokovic, too, doesn’t initially have to contend with the likes of Matteo Berretini, Nick Kyrgios and Tsitsipas (all grouped together in the third quarter). The only other top ten player in Djokovic’s quarter is Alcaraz, who may have beaten the top seed on clay in Madrid, but grass is another proposition for the fifth seed, still adjusting to this surface.

No 3 seed, Ruud, is also lurking in his own quarter, and immediate threats posed to him would be Cameron Norrie, Hugo Hurkacz and Grigor Dimitrov.

The latter recently appeared on a social media-orchestrated ‘chat’ with Nadal, whom he cheekily asked to consider coaching him post retirement.

Unsurprisingly Nadal’s tongue-in-cheek reply was: “I would be very expensive.”

The fact of the matter is Dimitrov, originally dubbed “Baby Fed”, modelled his game on Federer.

Thus if ever the Bulgarian No 1 would seek a celebrity coach for future posterity, it would definitely be the Swiss GOAT, rather than the Spanish.

For Wimbledon 2022 nevertheless, it is the Spanish GOAT who will be roaming the hallowed grass, relishing the fact that both Alexander Zverev and Federer are not encroaching on his patch and primarily in his eyes, only the Serbian GOAT is left to lock horns with.