There is just one week left before Wimbledon gets underway and there will be some burning questions asked as the world’s best players fight it out for the third Grand Slam title of the year.
Frustrated after being denied the chance to complete his Grand Slam set at the French Open earlier this month, world number one Novak Djokovic will be out to prove that he has moved on from his disappointment in Paris by successfully defending his title at the All England Club.
Seven-time champion Roger Federer will also be out to add to his tally of 17 Grand Slam titles, with this year’s Wimbledon Championships shaping as possibly his last chance to add to that tally which has remained stalled for nearly three years.
On the women’s side, all eyes will be on world number one Serena Williams as she seeks to hold each of the four Grand Slam titles simultaneously for the second time in her career. But as always, she will face some fierce competition from a list of players headlined by defending champion Petra Kvitova.
Here are just some of the questions that will be asked in the lead-up to the third Grand Slam tournament of 2015.
1. Can Novak Djokovic move on from his French Open disappointment?
By the time world number one Novak Djokovic kicks off the defence of his Wimbledon title, it will have been three weeks since he suffered a heartbreaking four-set defeat to Stan Wawrinka in the French Open final.
The Serb has had a history of bouncing back at the All England Club following disappointment at Roland Garros, having reached the final in three of the last four years, winning in 2011 and 2014 and losing to Andy Murray in 2013.
Thus, if the past is anything to go by, then expect an angry Djokovic to come out all guns firing as he seeks to successfully retain his Wimbledon title, in what could be the first steps towards French Open redemption in 2016.
As always, career rivals Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Murray will headline those keen to dethrone the world number one as Wimbledon champion. Can any of those three win the title, or will Djokovic become the first man since Federer won five titles in a row between 2003 and 2007 to win back-to-back titles at SW19?
2. Will this be the last chance Roger Federer has of winning a Grand Slam title?
This year’s Wimbledon Championships shapes as the last chance Roger Federer has of winning his 18th Grand Slam title, but first since he saluted at the All England Club in 2012.
Just as it seemed that the Swiss Maestro was beyond his best, the man himself has proven everyone wrong by winning four titles this year, including just recently in Halle last week when he beat Andreas Seppi in the final in straight sets.
It marked his eighth title at the tournament and saw him join Guillermo Vilas and Rafael Nadal in winning at least eight titles at a single tournament.
Federer will now switch his focus to not only winning Wimbledon for possibly the last time, but also breaking the record of most titles won at the All England Club, which he presently shares with Pete Sampras (seven titles).
While he hasn’t mounted the Grand Slam dais since 2012, he did reach the final here last year, going down to Novak Djokovic in a five-set classic and thus proving that he still has what it takes to win Grand Slam title number eighteen.
Whether he can do that this year will be an interesting subplot at this year’s Wimbledon Championships.
3. Can Andy Murray reign at Wimbledon again?
After a poor 2014 season by his standards, Andy Murray has this year rediscovered the form that saw him win the 2012 US Open, the Olympic gold medal in that same year, and Wimbledon in 2013.
The Scot started the season by reaching the final of the Australian Open for a fourth time, only to suffer yet more disappointment at Melbourne Park when he lost to Novak Djokovic in four sets.
That would be the first of two finals he has lost to the Serb, also going down to the world number one in Miami in March. However, Murray has won three titles this year, including his first two on clay and most recently his fourth title at Queen’s.
Most significantly, he defeated the undisputed King of Clay, Rafael Nadal, to win in Madrid and in the process score his first win against any of his fellow Big Four rivals since defeating Djokovic to win Wimbledon in 2013.
His impressive form this year has led to many believing that he can once again reign at SW19, where two years ago he became the first local man since Fred Perry in 1936 to triumph at the most prestigious Grand Slam tournament.
Thus, there is no reason why Murray cannot repeat the success he did twenty-four months ago as he seeks to win Grand Slam title number three. On the back of his impressive form so far this year, you can bet on it happening.
4. How will Stan Wawrinka fare at the All England Club?
Having upset Novak Djokovic to win his second Grand Slam title at Roland Garros, Swiss number two Stan Wawrinka will be out to improve his record at Wimbledon, where he has yet to reach the semi-finals.
Grass has proven to be Wawrinka’s worst surface over the years, with his run to the quarter-finals at the All England Club last year being his best performance at the tournament following years of underperformance at SW19.
His preparations for Wimbledon took a hit when he went down to eventual finalist Kevin Anderson at Queen’s last week, thus leaving him short of any match practice ahead of what is historically his worst Grand Slam tournament.
With quarter-final points to defend this year, Wawrinka risks dropping back out of the top four, but if he was able to win the French Open twelve months after crashing out in the first round, then there shouldn’t be any excuses for him not to at least reach the semi-finals at the All England Club for the first time.
5. How will Lleyton Hewitt fare in his Wimbledon farewell?
While Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Andy Murray headline the favourites at Wimbledon, one of the major subplots of this year’s Championships will be Lleyton Hewitt making his final appearance at the tournament, having announced that he will retire after next year’s Australian Open.
Hewitt was the last man to salute at the All England Club (in 2002) before the aforementioned quartet took over, winning the next twelve titles (Federer seven, Nadal and Djokovic two each, and Murray one) between them.
The Australian, who has been handed a wildcard into the event, will be out to enjoy his 17th and final appearance at Wimbledon, where as mentioned before he won the title in 2002, thrashing David Nalbandian in straight sets in the final.
But as he will be unseeded, he will be thrown into the mercy of the big names in the early rounds, just as he was in 2012 when he drew then-world number five Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, whom he has never beaten, in the first round.
It will be interesting to see how Hewitt, who hasn’t gone past the second round at SW19 since 2010, fares in this stop of his year-long farewell tour which has also included stops in Miami, Den Bosch and most recently Queen’s.
6. Can anyone stop Serena Williams?
Given the year world number one Serena Williams has had, it seems only complacency, injury or a bad day at the office can stop her from winning Wimbledon for a sixth time this year.
If she does salute at the All England Club as one would expect, not only will she get to within one title of Steffi Graf’s 22 Grand Slam titles and three of Margaret Court’s 24, she will also emulate the Serena Slam for a second time, having initially done so between the 2002 French Open and the 2003 Australian Open.
Earlier this month she completed a third Career Grand Slam when she defeated Lucie Safarova in three sets to win the French Open for a third time, but while she has been dominant at the Slams this year, she has been taken to three sets in seven of her fourteen matches, including that final at Roland Garros.
With only a third round result to defend this year, the American can all but wrap up the year-end world number one ranking for a third consecutive year by going on to win the title at Wimbledon, something she hasn’t done since 2012.
7. Or will Petra Kvitova successfully defend her title?
Of course, the biggest challenger to Serena Williams will be defending champion Petra Kvitova, who has traditionally always saved her best form for the lawns of the All England Club.
The Czech, who matched her career-best ranking of world number two after both Maria Sharapova and Simona Halep failed to defend their points at Roland Garros, has claimed two titles this year including on the clay courts of Madrid where she handed Williams her only loss for the season to date in the semi-finals.
However, the Grand Slams continues to be her biggest Achilles heel; she suffered a third round, straight-sets loss to Madison Keys at the Australian Open while at the French she was upset in the fourth round by Swiss Timea Bacsinszky.
Hopefully a return to the All England Club will see her rediscover her best Grand Slam form as she seeks to successfully defend the title, something that hasn’t been achieved since Williams won back-to-back titles in 2009 and 2010.
As the defending champion, Kvitova will not only risk 2,000 rankings points, but also possibly her world number two ranking, depending on how both Halep and Sharapova, and perhaps a few others, fare this year.
8. How worse could it possibly get for Eugenie Bouchard?
The player Kvitova thrashed in last year’s final, Eugenie Bouchard, has endured a horror 2015 season so far, having lost more matches than she has won and dropping out of the WTA’s top ten as a result of this poor form.
The Canadian appears to be struggling under the weight of expectations brought about by her sudden rise up the rankings last year, which saw her reach the semi-finals at the Australian and French Opens, as well as the final at Wimbledon.
In fact, the 21-year-old has dropped ten of her last eleven matches dating back to the Australian Open, where she reached the quarter-finals but was exposed by eventual runner-up Maria Sharapova.
Her recent match saw her go down to France’s Kristina Mladenovic, the same player who beat her at the French Open, in Birmingham in three sets.
With over a thousand points to defend at the All England Club, where as mentioned before she reached the final before blanking out against Petra Kvitova, Bouchard risks further dropping down the rankings, which would only further compound the woes she has suffered so far this year.
These are just some of the questions that will be asked as the countdown to Wimbledon continues. Will the big names be there when it matters most? Who will win the men’s and women’s titles in 2015? And can Serena Williams complete the Serena Slam for a second time?
All that is set to be answered in an interesting and intriguing two weeks of tennis starting next week. A full preview of the men’s and women’s contenders will be provided later this week.
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