Wimbledon Women's Draw
The women’s draw at Wimbledon is equally intriguing and is seemingly wide open. Defending champion Angelique Kerber will face stern competition if she is to retain her title. She will face competition from the likes of Naomi Osaka, Ashleigh Barty, Karolina Pliskova, Petra Kvitova and the ever-present Serena Williams.
Angelique Kerber
The defending champion who is ranked number five in this tournament will start the defence of her title on July 2nd on court No. 1. The three-time grand slam champion faces a tough defence of her crown, but she is relishing the challenge, “It’s nice being back on this special place here for me. It’s a completely new year. Everything starts from zero. It is great to be back, but for me right now it’s [about] focusing on my first round, on the tournament.”
Naomi Osaka
The former world number one and current world number two took women’s tennis by storm winning the US Open in 2018 and then winning the Australian Open in 2019. However, she has recently struggled, and she has not been able to recreate her previous form. These grand slam victories and the spotlight of being world number one put Osaka under a lot of ‘stress’ with the 21-year-old suffering from headaches; this led to a third-round exit in Rolland Garros. She is the second seed in Wimbledon, and she claims that this will be better for her tennis and career, “I think it's better for me now to be number two here." This tournament will provide a good barometer to see if Osaka is back on the form that made her world number one.
Ashleigh Barty
The Australian is world number one as well as the number one seed at the All England Club; she will be looking to add Wimbledon to her Rolland Garros title in 2019. Barty doesn’t feel the pressure of being the top seed and doesn’t feel the pressure in her quest for her maiden Wimbledon title, “The only pressure that I put on myself is making sure I do everything correctly."
Serena Williams
As ever Serena Williams is the woman to beat in Grand Slam tournaments with her pedigree speaking for itself having amassed 23 Grand Slam titles over her career. Williams who has previously struggled with a few injury problems says that she is fully healthy for Wimbledon, "I haven't had enough match play but I saw some good doctors in Paris and I'm feeling better,". The eleventh seed is being tipped by legends such as Chris Everet to win her 24th Grand Slam.
Johanna Konta
Johanna Konta is coming of the back of a successful clay court season with the high point being a semi-final at Rolland Garros; despite this she has not had the same success during the grass court season. She crashed out of the second round in Birmingham and the third round at Eastbourne; despite this she will be looking recapture the form that took her to the semi-final of Wimbledon two years ago. The 28-year-old is the main British hope in Wimbledon and will be hoping to become the first British woman get to a Grand Slam final since 1977. Konta’s improvements over the past view years have been plain to see and have led to analysts such as Jo Durie warning other players of Konta’s improved play.
