Tennis

Wimbledon 2019: Venus Williams and Cori Gauff to play generation game


There will be more than a net between them when the Americans Venus Williams and Cori Gauff play each other in the first round at Wimbledon on Monday – like 257 ranking places, $41.4m in career earnings and a staggering 24 years in age.

Gauff, the 15-year-old daughter of a former State basketball star and a mother who was a track and field athlete at university, brings good genes and innocence to what should be a memorable occasion for her, win or lose, against the five-time champion she calls her inspiration.

Williams, at 39, is the oldest player in the draw (in perhaps her farewell Wimbledon) and Gauff the youngest qualifier at the Championships in the Open era. No doubt, it will be labelled a match for the ages, but there will be too much at stake for either of them to let sentiment get in the way of the job at hand.

For once, Williams is on the opposite side of the draw to her younger sister, Serena, who has been bracketed in a hellish opening section. Needing one more slam to match the record 24 of Margaret Court, Williams has not added to her collection since becoming a mother for the first time in September 2017.

She begins her pursuit of an eighth Wimbledon title on Tuesday with what ought to be a gentle opener against the Italian qualifier Giulia Gatto-Monticone, but three other former champions lurk in her quarter of the draw: Angelique Kerber, Garbiñe Muguruza and Maria Sharapova, along with the world No 1 Ashleigh Barty.

The Australian has a decent run, with China’s Saisai Zheng a tricky first opponent, Muguruza probably in the third round, Belinda Bencic in the fourth and Williams in the quarter-finals.

The men’s draw, which Rafael Nadal viewed with such horror after the seedings committee put Roger Federer ahead of him at No 2, delivers up the possibility of their meeting in the semi-finals. The Spaniard, who almost made the final last year, could play Nick Kyrgios in the second round – and how he would like to avenge his fourth-round loss to the Australian five years ago, when Kyrgios announced his arrival here in spectacular fashion.

Kyrgios, whose pre-tournament mood and behaviour have been even more erratic than usual, had already laid down a depth charge for this meeting in a recent podcast when he said of Nadal: “He’s my polar opposite, and he’s super salty. Every time I’ve beaten him … when he wins, it’s fine. He won’t say anything bad, he’ll credit the opponent, ‘He was a great player.’ But as soon as I beat him, it’s just like: ‘He has no respect for me, my fans and no respect to the game.’”

Game on. Maybe. Kyrgios has to beat his compatriot Jordan Thompson first – and that is no given.

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Federer’s path to a semi-final against Nadal has thrown up a relatively benign route of Lucas Pouille in the fourth round and perhaps Kei Nishikori in the quarters.

When the men’s tournament opens on Monday, Novak Djokovic – still the obvious favourite to successfully defend his title – should have a decent but unthreatening first match against Philipp Kohlschreiber. Stefanos Tsitsipas, who opens against Thomas Fabbiano, is the Serb’s main obstacle in that quarter.

Kevin Anderson, whom Djokovic beat handily in last year’s final, is in the bottom quarter of that half, playing Andy Murray’s doubles partner, Pierre-Hugues Herbert, first up. The threat in that section is probably the sixth seed Alexander Zverev.



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