Wimbledon, England (SportsNetwork.com) – Top-ranked Rafael Nadal made a pair of hasty exits in the previous two Wimbledon championships, and he was dealt another tough draw this time around.<\/p>\n
The two-time champion has a possible second-round rematch with Czech Lukas Rosol, who bludgeoned the mighty Spaniard at that same stage on the famed grass at the All England Club two years ago.<\/p>\n
The second-seeded Nadal is expected to get past Slovak Martin Klizan in his opener next week, despite having lost to Belgian Steve Darcis at that stage a year ago.<\/p>\n
The reigning French and U.S. Open champion Nadal could face big-serving Croat Ivo Karlovic in the third round before a possible fourth-round date with France’s Richard Gasquet or Gael Monfils. And Canadian slugger Milos Raonic could loom in the quarterfinals.<\/p>\n
If the draw pans out, Nadal’s 34th career meeting with seven-time Wimbledon champion Roger Federer would take place in the semifinals. The fourth-seeded Swiss icon has won two of their three career grass-court showdowns, all in Wimbledon finals, and will launch his bid for an eighth crown at the AEC against Italian Paolo Lorenzi.<\/p>\n
After that, Federer could face a tricky second-round matchup in either Frenchman Julian Benneteau or Luxembourg left-hander Gilles Muller. Fifteenth-seeded Pole Jerzy Janowicz, a Wimbledon semifinalist last year, could be a fourth-round opponent for the Swiss great.<\/p>\n
A possible all-Swiss quarterfinal could happen between Federer and world No. 3 Aussie Open champ Stan Wawrinka, who is seeded fifth at the fortnight. Wawrinka will open against Portugal’s Joao Sousa next week. Russian Dmitry Tursunov could be a third-round opponent for Wawrinka, who potentially could face ninth-seeded American John Isner after that.<\/p>\n
Top seed Novak Djokovic, the 2011 Wimbledon champion and last year’s runner-up to Andy Murray, is coming off a tough loss against Nadal in the French Open final, his fifth defeat in his last seven Grand Slam finals.<\/p>\n
Djokovic will open up against Kazakhstan’s Andrey Golubev, with two-time Wimbledon semifinalist Jo-Wilfried Tsonga as a possible fourth-round opponent.<\/p>\n
The Serbian star could meet 2010 Wimbledon runner-up Tomas Berdych in the quarterfinals and could be looking at a rematch of last year’s final with Murray in the semis.<\/p>\n
The third-seeded world No. 5 Murray has arguably the easiest draw of the top- four seeds. He’ll open against Belgian David Goffin on Centre Court on Monday and could meet pesky Italian Fabio Fognini in the third round.<\/p>\n
Murray could be opposed by Spaniard David Ferrer or rising Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov in the quarters. Dimitrov titled on grass at The Queen’s Club last week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Wimbledon, England (SportsNetwork.com) – Top-ranked Rafael Nadal made a pair of hasty exits in the previous two Wimbledon championships, and he was dealt another tough draw this time around. The two-time champion has a possible second-round rematch with Czech Lukas Rosol, who bludgeoned the mighty Spaniard at that same stage on the famed grass at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[248],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19831"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19831\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19832,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19831\/revisions\/19832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}