At Wimbledon, the Plots Thicken
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Monday, June 29, 2009
WIMBLEDON, England, June 28 -- As Week 1 gives way to Week 2 at Wimbledon on Monday, the primary storylines have not shifted since the beginning of the tournament.
Will Roger Federer win a sixth Wimbledon championship and record 15th Grand Slam title?
Will Andy Murray end Britain's 73-year wait for a male singles champion at the All England club?
Will Venus Williams become the first woman since Steffi Graf in 1991-93 to win the Venus Rosewater Dish three years in a row, bringing her career haul to six?
Will Serena Williams end her older sister's reign and add to her own Wimbledon championships from 2002 and 2003?
Will they ever play a point on Centre Court with the spiffy new retractable roof closed?
"The common joke has been that they haven't had to use it yet," said Andy Roddick, twice a runner-up to Federer at Wimbledon. "All this money, and the weather's been nice."
That might register as the biggest upset through six days of play at this edition of the grass-court Grand Slam tournament: 1995 was the last year there was no rain at all during Wimbledon, and while the lightest of sprinkles did emerge during Murray's victory Saturday, it wasn't deemed enough to warrant closing the top.
"It would have been a nice bit of history, I guess," Murray said. "The first match to play under the roof."
The 22-year-old has yet to show any signs of being the least bit intimidated by all the fuss about the sort of history his countrymen hope he'll make next weekend. He even received a note from Queen Elizabeth II wishing him luck, and there's a buzz building about whether she would make her first appearance at Wimbledon since 1977 if Murray were to reach the final.
First things first, though. Wimbledon is the only major tennis tournament that schedules all 16 men's and women's fourth-round matches for the second Monday, so things should be busy around the grounds.
Most of the biggest names are still around -- 2008 champion Rafael Nadal pulled out before the tournament with sore knees, and 2004 champion Maria Sharapova lost in the second round -- but there are some new faces. Most notably: 124th-ranked Melanie Oudin, a 17-year-old from Marietta, Ga., who had to go through qualifying to get into the women's draw; and 46th-ranked Dudi Sela, the first man from Israel to reach Wimbledon's fourth round since 1989.
