The Wait is Over--Wimbledon Starts on Monday

Wimbledon, one of the most famous sports events in the world, begins Monday and continues through Sunday, July 3. You can learn everything about this year’s tournament here:

 http://www.wimbledon.com/en_GB/index.html.

For the most part, players are entered automatically according to their world rankings. But this year there are two exceptions on the women’s side.

Serena Williams is seeded 7th, even though her ranking is 26. This exception is well deserved, since she was ranked first a year ago, when she left tennis because of a foot injury, and then blood clots in her lung. Additionally, she not only won Wimbledon last year, but 3 other times as well. That makes her a four-time winner and without dispute deserving of a place among the top 10 seeds.

The other exception is her sister Venus, who, though she ranks 33, is seeded 23. She, too, was out with a hip injury for most of this season. Venus has won Wimbledon 5 times! Just so you know, women’s #1 Caroline Wozniacki is seeded first, as is men's #1, Rafael Nadal.

One of the real disappointments for many people is that Kim Clijsters was forced to withdraw because of a foot injury she sustained at the recent Unicef Open in the Netherlands, played last week. That leaves things wide open, even with a likely rusty Serena Williams in the mix.

The top 10 seeds are :


1 Caroline WOZNIACKI (DEN) [1]

2 Kim CLIJSTERS (BEL) [2]

3 Vera ZVONAREVA (RUS) [3]

4 Na LI (CHN) [4]

5 Victoria AZARENKA (BLR) [5]

6 Maria SHARAPOVA (RUS) [6]

7 Francesca SCHIAVONE (ITA) [7]

8 Serena WILLIAMS (USA) [26]

9 Petra KVITOVA (CZE) [8]

10 Marion BARTOLI (FRA) [9]


The top ten male seeds are:


1 Rafael NADAL (ESP) [1]

2 Novak DJOKOVIC (SRB) [2]

3 Roger FEDERER (SUI) [3]

4 Andy MURRAY (GBR) [4]

5 Robin SODERLING (SWE) [5]

6 Tomas BERDYCH (CZE) [7]

7 David FERRER (ESP) [6]

8 Andy RODDICK (USA) [10]

9 Gael MONFILS (FRA) [8]

10 Mardy FISH (USA) [9]

So keep your eye on the Wimbledon ball. It should be two weeks of inspiring tennis for us TLN folks.

Opening round matches will be televised on ESPN 2 from 7 a.m.-5 p.m., and if you happen to have Tennis Channel, matches are repeated at night at both 7 and 11 p.m. If you can’t see matches on TV, there is plenty of opportunity to follow matches on the website, where you can see live scores and video replays of matches. You can see streaming video of matches at www.espn3.com and at www.fromsport.com