Wimbledon 06: Men's Singles Preview

Men's Singles Draw


Defending champion Roger Federer, chasing the goal of a fourth successive men's singles title at The Championships, was handed a tough route in pursuit of that achievement when the draw was made at the All England Club.

First up for the top seed from Switzerland in Monday's traditional Centre Court opener will be the 20-year-old pride of France, Richard Gasquet, who once rode as high as 12 in the world rankings but has slipped to 66 this year. Though clay is obviously the favourite surface of this son of a tennis club owner in the south of France, Gasquet won the Nottingham grass court title a year ago before moving on to Wimbledon and reaching the fourth round in only his second appearance at The Championships.

Federer, who will set a new record of 42 consecutive grass court victories if he wins Monday's match, beating Bjorn Borg's mark of 41, has not lost at Wimbledon since a first round exit in 2002 to Mario Ancic and should overcome Gasquet without excessive alarm. However, his next prospective opponent, Tim Henman, could be altogether more demanding if the former British number one defeats Sweden's Robin Soderling in the first round.

Henman is unseeded for the first time in a decade at a tournament where he has four times reached the semi-finals and been a quarter-finalist on another four occasions. Federer admitted before the draw was made that an unseeded Henman was one of the opponents he least favoured.

An expected win over Henman would by no means mark the end of Federer's concerns about retaining the championship he values above all others. Also lurking in his half of the draw are two danger men who have given him problems in the past - his 2002 conqueror Ancic and the Argentinian David Nalbandian.

The 7th-seeded Ancic, a Wimbledon semi-finalist in 2004, could be Federer's quarter-final opponent. Ancic certainly has an easy-looking early draw until the third round, when he could run up against his compatriot, the 6ft 10in Ivo Karlovic.

With just four losses this year (all of them to Rafael Nadal) in 63 matches, Federer is clearly confident and, by his own estimate, at the peak of his form after a hard but successful work-out in the grass court tournament at Halle, Germany last week.

The top-ranked American, James Blake, seeded seventh and runner-up at last week's Stella Artois championships at Queen's Club, could emerge from the lower half of Federer's section of the draw to challenge the holder despite a poor record at Wimbledon, where he has not gone beyond the second round in three previous attempts.

Federer's luck with the draw is not all bad, though. The two opponents he acknowledges could provide his most serious threat, Lleyton Hewitt and Andy Roddick, are safely tucked away in the other side of the draw and would not need to be faced until the final. Roddick, who lost to Federer in the 2004 and 2005 finals, has lost a little of his cutting edge this year, and exited in the Queen's semi-finals to Blake while in pursuit of four straight titles there.

Hewitt, the Stella champion for the fourth time in seven years, is clearly in better grass court form, indeed all-round form, than Roddick, though both men have been suffering from ankle injuries during the clay court season. The sixth-seeded Hewitt, after an easy-looking couple of rounds, could run up against an old adversary, Marat Safin, who has fallen to 87 in the rankings, or possibly the big-hitting Chilean, Fernando Gonzalez.

Safin, a former winner of the Australian and US Opens, drew a first round plum opponent in Greg Rusedski, currently the top-ranked Briton, while the new hope of the British game, Andy Murray, must face the 31st seed, Nicolas Massu of Chile.

Fresh from his repeat triumph at the French Open, second seed Rafael Nadal starts against the fourth-ranked British player, the wild card Alex Bogdanovic, and could come up against the 1992 champion Andre Agassi in the third round, with Ivan Ljubicic, the man he beat in the French semi-finals, a possible quarter-final challenge.

Written by Ronald Atkin

Source: Wimbledon Official Site