Olympics:Andy Murray was handed an extremely tough first-round match against Switzerland's Stanislas Wawrinka at the Olympic tennis draw at Wimbledon this morning. With only 16 seeds in a 64-man field instead of the 32 out of 128 who are seeded at the grand slams, there was always the potential for some tasty first-round ties.
And that is certainly the case for third seed Murray, who will meet world number 26 Wawrinka, a man he has lost to four times in 10 meetings, including in the third round of the US Open two years ago. The pair also had a very close battle under the roof at Wimbledon in the fourth round in 2009, with Murray eventually winning in five sets.
Wawrinka has struggled to find his best form this season, though, and lost in the first round of Wimbledon last month to Austria’s Jurgen Melzer, while the 27-year-old may also be compromised by his duties in carrying the Swiss flag at the opening ceremony tomorrow.
Murray has never won a singles match at the Olympics having lost in the first round to Chinese Taipei’s Lu Yen-hsun in Beijing four years ago, but if he does get past Wawrinka then he would be a strong favourite to beat either Jarkko Nieminen of Finland or India’s Somdev Devvarman.
Both men have been recent grand slam opponents for Murray, who beat Devvarman in the first round of the US Open last year and then saw off Nieminen in the second round at the French Open this year despite struggling with a back spasm.
From there things get much tougher again, with Murray scheduled to meet French 16th seed Richard Gasquet in the third round, sixth seed Tomas Berdych of the Czech Republic in the quarter-finals and world number two Novak Djokovic in the last four.
Djokovic will face Italy’s Fabio Fognini in the first round and has French fifth seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in his quarter, while in the top half world number one and Wimbledon champion Roger Federer meets Colombia’s Alejandro Falla. On paper it is a comfortable draw but Federer will be wary of the world number 51, who he nearly lost to in the first round of Wimbledon in 2010.
Also in Federer’s half are 10th seed John Isner of the US, eighth-seeded Argentinian Juan Martin Del Potro and fourth seed David Ferrer, the leading Spaniard in the absence of the injured Rafael Nadal, the gold medallist in Beijing.