Wimbledon - Ladies’ Singles Preview

Ash Barty is not there to defend her Wimbledon title, and top seed Iga Swiatek is the new dominant force in women’s tennis.

On the face of it, Iga is set to add the 2022 Wimbledon trophy to her fast growing collection, and the rest simply providing support to her starring role.

I’m not as convinced.

Sure, her path is not particularly onerous early on, and Swiatek should account for Yulia Putintseva (27) in the third round, and Jil Teichmann (18) or Barbora Krejcikova (13) in the round of sixteen.

Her quarter final opponent is seeded to be Jessica Pegula (8), but others could pop up, including 2017 Wimbledon champion Garbiñe Muguruza (9) (if you can excuse her patchy lead up form), and unseeded Grand Slam champions Sloane Stephens and Bianca Andreescu (the latter a Bad Homburg finalist at the weekend)

Who Swiatek may meet in the semi final is anyones guess.

The other quarter in the top half is led by Paula Badosa (4) and she’d be horrified to see Petra Kvitova (25) as a likely third round opponent.

Kvitova is a dual Wimbledon winner, and just won Eastbourne, to pose one of the big threats at SW19.

Badosa or Kvitova would probably have to face 2019 champion Simona Halep (16) in the round of sixteen, a daunting task.

The other half of this stacked quarter is headed by last year’s finalist Karolina Pliskova (4).

In that section is the biggest wildcard Serena Williams, and even without any singles tennis of late, her doubles match practice at Eastbourne could be enough to launch Serena into a third round clash with Pliskova.

Surviving that only presents more difficulty with a possible round of sixteen match up with either CoCo Gauff (11) or Amanda Anisimova (20), both in ideal form.

The top quarter of the bottom half features Ons Jabeur (3), a genuine chance to take the title. Jabeur recently won the grass court title in Berlin, beating Gauff in the semis, and Belinda Bencic in the final.

The draw has Jabeur most likely meeting last years semi finalist Angelique Kerber (15) in the round of sixteen.

The other section of this quarter has Danielle Collins (8) seeded to meet Emma Raducanu (10) in the fourth round.

Raducanu hasn’t won much of late, and she is drawn to possibly play unseeded Caroline Garcia in the second round. Garcia just defeated Andreescu to win the Bad Homburg title.

Anett Kontaveit (2) is heading the bottom quarter, and has no form to speak of. She hasn’t played since Roland Garros, where she lost her opening match, just as she did in Rome the tournament before.

If Kontaveit makes it to the third round, she may meet Anhelina Kalinina (29), an Eastbourne quarter finalist.

Harder still would be a round of sixteen clash with Beatriz Haddad Maia (23) who has won Nottingham and Birmingham and was runner up at Eastbourne, or Belinda Bencic (14), finalist in Berlin.

Maria Sakkari (5) won’t find it easy in the other part of the quarter, with a possible fourth round encounter with Jelena Ostapenko (12), finalist at Eastbourne.

Before that, the Greek number one would need to travel past Sorana Cirstea (26).semi finalist in Birmingham.

My predictions:

Quarter finals:

Iga Swiatek (1) v Garbiñe Muguruza (9)

Petra Kvitova (25) v CoCo Gauff (11)

Danielle Collins (7) v Ons Jabeur (3)

Jelena Ostapenko (12) v Beatriz Haddad Maia (23)

Semi finals:

Iga Swiatek (1) v Petra Kvitova (25)

Ons Jabeur (3) v Beatriz Haddad Maia (23)

Final:

Petra Kvitova (25) to defeat Ons Jabeur (3)

to win her third Wimbledon