Wimbledon<\/a>, the most prestigious tennis tournament in the world.<\/p>\nThe third Grand Slam of the season will be held from June 25 till July 8, 2012, at the All England Lawn Tennis Club.<\/p>\n
128 players will be fighting during the two weeks for The Championships title and 2000 ATP points.<\/p>\n
Last year, Nole realised his lifelong dream lifting the trophy for the first time, when he beat Spaniard Rafael Nadal in four sets 6-4, 6-1, 1-6, 6-3 in the 125th men\u2019s singles final.<\/strong><\/p>\nThe 25-year-old Belgrade native is defending 2,000 points, Nadal 1200, Federer 360, and they\u2019re all in contention to hold top spot after The Championships.<\/p>\n
Novak has held the no.1 ATP Ranking since July 4, 2011, and he should reach the final to ensure that he remains ahead of his rivals.<\/p>\n
In his eighth appearance at Wimbledon, the top seed will open his title defense campaign against former world no.1, currently no.38 in the ATP rankings, Spaniard Juan Carlos Ferrero.<\/strong><\/p>\nThey are tied 1-1 in H2Hs. Ferrero won their first match in Umag 2005 on clay, while Novak won their 2007 encounter in Madrid on hard court.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe definitely has a lot of experience playing on the big stage, so I’m not underestimating him, that’s for sure,\u201d<\/strong> Novak said about his first round rival. \u201cIt’s going to be a good first round match. Everybody who follows tennis, especially us, the tennis players, we really respect him a lot. He was number one of the world; idol of many generations back in Spain; he’s a Grand Slam winner; Davis Cup winner; someone that people really appreciate.\u00a0After everything he has been through, he is still trying to go back to the top. He is always dangerous. If you look at him now, I think he’s playing equally well as he was playing four, five years ago. Now it’s just a matter of his fitness obviously and his confidence on the court.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\nIn the second round Djokovic will play against the winner of the match between world no.53 Ryan Harrison (USA) and no.55 Yen-Hsun Lu (TPE).<\/p>\n
These are Novak\u2019s potential opponents in the later stages of the tournament:<\/p>\n
Third round<\/span>: Radek Stepanek (CZE, 28 ), Sergiy Stakhovsky (UKR), James Blake (USA)
\nFourth round<\/span>: Juan Monaco (ARG, 15), Marcel Granollers (ESP, 24), Viktor Troicki (SRB)
\nQuarter-finals<\/span>: Tomas Berdych (CZE, 6), Nicolas Almagro (ESP, 12), Richard Gasquet (FRA, 18 )
\nSemi-finals<\/span>: Roger Federer (SUI, 3), Janko Tipsarevic (SRB, 8 ), John Isner (USA, 11), Fernando Verdasco (ESP, 17)
\nFinals<\/span>: Rafael Nadal (ESP, 2), Andy Murray (GBR, 4), Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (FRA, 5),
\nDavid Ferrer (ESP, 7), Juan Martin Del Potro (ARG, 9)<\/p>\nThe world no.1 is looking to win his third title of the season after triumphing in Melbourne and Miami.<\/p>\n
Photo: Getty Images<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In his eighth appearance at Wimbledon, Nole will begin his title defense against former world no.1, currently no.38 in the ATP rankings, Spaniard Juan Carlos Ferrero. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":31325,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31384"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31384\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31387,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31384\/revisions\/31387"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/Wimbledon_02.jpg\" "\\"Nole")
<\/p>\n