Wimbledon Warm-Ups

While waiting to see if a couple of the big upsets potentially underway will fully materialize ...
Most of the time, you can get some inkling of what will happen at a Grand Slam by looking at who does well and who doesn't in the "warm-ups." You know, those events in the three or four weeks leading up to a major tournament, where most of the big names show up on the same courts at the same time. Well, Wimbledon isn't exactly like that - at least not all the time.
Mainly, that's because there are so few of them - Queen's Club, Halle, Eastbourne and s'Hertogenbosch for the men and Birmingham, Eastbourne and s'Hertogenbosch for the women. Seven tournaments total. Is it any wonder so many players skip those two weeks all together?
Interestingly, most of the top men don't skip the warm-ups, so by the time Wimbledon rolls around, we've already seen many of them (Federer, Nadal and Roddick, just to name three) on the grass courts. In Federer's case, that loss to Lleyton Hewitt at Halle didn't seem indicative of anything at the time, but all of a sudden, just over a week later, he's just getting ready to go to a fifth set against Alejandro Falla at Wimbledon. Even if he does get through this one, maybe that match will prove more meaningful down the road.
Or it might not. After all, we've only seen him in one warm-up tournament. And he is the six-time champion. He's reached at least the finals here every year since 2003. And losing to Lleyton Hewitt isn't exactly a bad loss, especially not on grass. That's part of the infuriating beauty of the warm-ups. Right now, we don't know if Halle means anything. It's only after Wimbledon that we will be able to assign meaning – if there is any – to that loss.
The women's game is very similar, especially since Venus and Serena Williams, undoubtedly the queens of grass, are among the many players who make a habit of punching their grass-court tickets at Wimbledon – and only Wimbledon – each year. Not considering them, though, it's still hard to know what to make of the warm-ups. Sometimes, they do end up meaning something, sometimes, they mean nothing. There have been years when players who have won warm-ups have flamed out in the first round of Wimbledon. Other times, players who have excelled in the warm-ups have done well. The year she won Wimbledon, in 2004, Maria Sharapova was the winner at Birmingham, and she has remained pretty faithful to that event since. When she reached her first Grand Slam final, at Wimbledon in 2001, Justine Henin was coming off a three-set win over Kim Clijsters at s'Hertogenbosch. In 2006, Henin beat Amelie Mauresmo in the final of Eastbourne. Two weeks later, they played for the title, this time with Mauresmo winning.
So, what can we take from the warm-ups? At this point, not much more than the winners – Hewitt in Halle, Sam Querrey at Queen's Club, Michael Llodra at Eastbourne, Sergiy Stakhovsky at s'Hertogenbosch, Li Na at Birmingham, Elena Makarova at Eastbourne and Henin at s'Hertogenbosch. We know that Hewitt is a former champion at Wimbledon, and Henin is a former finalist, so these results should give them confidence. Llodra is a dangerous opponent on grass as well, and Li Na is coming off a semifinal run in Australia earlier this season, so these wins would seem to suggest they'll at least be names to watch on Wimbledon's lawns.
And what of the losers in the warm-ups? Well, that's a pretty impressive group - certainly more impressive than the winners. Besides the three aforementioned men (You have to borrow a hand to count the number of Wimbledon finals they've reached.), there was Murray, Djokovic, Lopez, Davydenko, Sharapova, Clijsters, Safina, Bartoli and Azarenka, just to name a few. What did playing in and losing those tournaments do for them? Did they get enough matches to feel confident coming into Wimbledon or not?
Stay tuned to find out.