Andy Roddick believes Serena Williams will win her opening match at Wimbledon, but warns she could run into trouble against Alex Eala in the second round as he admitted that match could be too close to call.<\/p>\n
Nearly four years after playing her last singles match at the 2022 US Open, the tennis great will make her return at Wimbledon and she will face Australian youngster Maja Joint<\/a> in the first round.<\/p>\n Since announcing her comeback, Williams<\/a> has played only two official matches and both have been doubles with the first coming at the HSBC Championship alongside Victoria Mboko and the second at last week\u2019s Berlin Open with Karolina Muchova.<\/p>\n The seven-time Wimbledon champion received a wildcard entry into the singles main draw<\/a> and will take on world No 87 on Tuesday and if she gets through that encounter, then she could take on rising star Eala, who starts her campaign against Renata Zarazua.<\/p>\n Eala<\/a> is seeded 29th and she has had some good results on grass as she won the WTA 125K Birmingham Open and also reached the semi-final of the Berlin Open, beating Elena Rybakina and Elina Svitolina before losing against eventual champion Linda Noskova.<\/p>\n Novak Djokovic, Aryna Sabalenka & Coco Gauff speak out on Serena Williams\u2019 Wimbledon comeback<\/a><\/p>\n During his official Wimbledon bracket challenge picks, Roddick explained why the 20-year-old Filipina could bother Williams if they do square off.<\/p>\n \u201cOkay, this is a tough one because Eala switches directions really well,\u201d he said on the Served with Andy Roddick podcast<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThe one thing I\u2019m worried about with Serena is someone hitting behind her when she\u2019s [moving] \u2026 movement is going to be everything for her. That\u2019s what we don\u2019t know. We can\u2019t see that during doubles. Like, you don\u2019t really move during doubles, certainly not the way you do on a singles court.<\/p>\n \u201cServe looks good, ball striking looks good, haven\u2019t heard a ton of reports, people are keeping it pretty locked up.<\/p>\n \u201cEala can spread the court, she can play both directions, this is a really hard one, she can expose Serena, but she [Eala] doesn\u2019t serve that well.<\/p>\n \u201cI mean, can we talk about how good you have to be to not play in five years? And I\u2019m grinding on a second round prediction for your match. That\u2019s like an ultimate show of respect, right?<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m buying myself time\u2026 I\u2019ll take [defending champion Iga] Swiatek through to the third round. I have Eala written on my draw here right now [to beat Williams in the second round].\u201d<\/p>\n But he opted for experience over youth as he eventually crossed Eala out and put down Williams to meet Swiatek in the round of 32 with the Pole going on to win that encounter.<\/p>\n The post Serena Williams gets Alex Eala warning from Andy Roddick<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Andy Roddick believes Serena Williams will win her opening match at Wimbledon, but warns she could run into trouble against Alex Eala in the second round as he admitted that match could be too close to call. Nearly four years after playing her last singles match at the 2022 US Open, the tennis great will […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2406"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2406\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Wimbledon News<\/h2>\n