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CENTRE Court celebrates its centenary in style today as Wimbledon opens with two British Grand Slam champions playing in tennis’ greatest arena on the opening day.
Andy Murray has won two championships and an Olympic gold medal on Centre Court, while 2021 US Open champion Raducanu has hopes of emulating some of that success herself in the years to come.
The pair are at opposite ends of their career, with Murray now 35 and Raducanu still just 19, but the hunger is just as great in both players to show what they can do in front of the fervent backing they will
Murray and Raducanu will appear on Centre Court today, the opening day of the tournament, following defending champion Novak Djokovic’s opening clash.
Murray, who faces unseeded Australian James Duckworth in opener, has struggled with an abdominal injury leading up to the tournament. This forced him to pull out of the cinch Championship at Queen’s, but he looked very impressive in his previous tournament on the grass at Stuttgart.
Meanwhile, Raducanu insisted she does not feel any additional pressure heading into her first round match at Wimbledon against Alison van Uytvanck
Raducanu, the 10th seed, has also seen her grass court preparation disrupted by a side strain but took her place in the draw on Friday and will face the dangerous Belgian Alison van Uytvanck, who is ranked 46th in the world.
“The ideal preparation would have been to play a couple matches at each of the tournaments,” Raducanu said. “I feel like it kind of relieved some pressure, maybe because I know I haven’t had the ideal preparation. So now I can just go out there, swing, can’t really expect too much of myself and have fun.”
(The Nation)
– June 27, 2022 @ 12:58 GMT | C.E
Tags: Alison van Uytvanck Andy Murray British Grand Slam Olympic
