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Andy will be the top seed for the first time at Wimbledon and has been preparing the defence of his second Wimbledon men's singles title on site since the middle of last week. On Monday he hit with rising Canadian star Denis Shapovalov. To continue his preparations and get some match practice on grass before The Championships get underway on Monday 3rd July, Andy will play against Lucas Pouille at the Hurlingham club in west London on Tuesday 27th June, and is also expected to play on Friday 30th June.
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The top eight seeds are expected to be:
1. Andy Murray
2. Novak Djokovic
3. Roger Federer
4. Rafa Nadal
5. Stan Wawrinka
6. Milos Raonic
7. Marin Cilic
8. Dominic Thiem
After winning his ninth Halle title Federer is currently considered by the bookies and the pundits to be the favourite for the 2017 title. Others believe Nadal - who won his La Decima at Roland Garros earlier this month - to be favourite for the title, but he has failed to get past the fourth round at The Championships since recaching the final in 2011, and he has shown himself to be vulnerable against big serving, all court players in the early rounds.
Queen's finalist Maric Cilic is playing clean tennis, and is showing some improvement to his return of serve - which let him down badly in crucial moments against Federer in the quarterfinal last year. Feliciano Lopez, who finally got his name on the historic Queen's trophy on Sunday could be a dangerous fourth round opponent, while there are a range of potentially difficult third and fourth round opponents including Gilles Muller, Juan Martin Del Potro, Richard Gasquet, Mischa Zverev and Sam Querrey.
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A week on Monday Andy will repeat the walk he made three years ago when he entered Centre Court as defending champion, still struggling with fitness and confidence in his body and his backhand following his return from back surgery, and perhaps also fatigued from an unexpected, and difficult, run to the semifinals of Roland Garros. He played good tennis for the first week, but lost in a flat match against the then Queen's champion Grigor Dimitrov in the quarterfinals. Back then Andy was struggling with his serve, as he is now, and lacked the confidence to attack against opponents in seemingly better form. Dimitrov was expected to soar after that win, but aside from an excellent semifinal against Nadal in Melbourne earlier this year he has failed to shine at the biggest tournaments.
Andy by contrast worked hard to regain his game and his confidence, he made improvements to his strengths as well as his weaknesses, he took huge strides on clay and won theee titles in the space of thirteen months, he lead Great Britain to the Davis Cup title for the first time in 79 years, won a second Wimbledon, a second Olympic gold medal, and patiently climbed higher up the rankings before reaching the summit.
That number one ranking is at risk - Nadal or Wawrinka could take it from him in the next two weeks, or others come the US Open hard court swing and beyond, but Andy might be content to relinquish it, happy that he has at the very least been number one. Right now his sights are set on one trophy and nothing else.
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