| Thursday, 26 June 2008 Written by Ronald Atkin Watch all of Friday's singles matches on Wimbledon LIVE After the shot and shell of the past two days, with the third seeds being blown away in both men's and women's events, the business of forecasting the fortunes of the sport's marquee names is being reduced to spin-of-the-coin stuff. So is it safe to predict a comfortable afternoon for five-time champion Roger Federer as he opens the Centre Court proceedings this afternoon against Marc Gicquel, a 31-year-old ranked 60 who has never won a tournament? Sticking out one's neck, let's offer a resounding "yes" to that question. They have met once before, at the US Open two years ago, when Federer won in straight sets, and whereas this is Roger's 45th match at Wimbledon (won 40 lost 4) Gicquel's debut here came only last summer and resulted in a first round loss. In fact Gicquel, who was born in Tunisia, did not decide on a professional tennis career until an age - 24 - when many are beginning to think of retirement these days. Not a lot of trees have been uprooted since then but Cicquel has managed to end inside the top 75 for the past two seasons. The ideal description of him, surely, is journeyman. Just a pity the French don't have a word for it. But to infer that Federer may not have to remove his fancy cardigan to wrap up this one would be going a bit far when you think of dear departed like Novak Djokovic and Maria Sharapova. Second match on Centre is one of the longest rivalries in the women's game, Serena Williams versus Amelie Mauresmo. Eleven times they have clashed and nine times Serena has come out the victor, though only one of those nine wins was at Wimbledon, in the 2004 semi-finals. In fact, Mauresmo won their last match, at the US Open in 2006, but she has been through a bleak time since then, the year of her Wimbledon triumph, in terms of matches lost and ongoing injury problems. Nevertheless Amelie will be chuffed that the order of play people at the All England Club have finally got around to acknowleding that she is one of their former champions, since for her first two rounds she was consigned to Court 11 which, as Marat Safin has opined, seems as if it is another club. Finally, there is a sentimental return to Centre Court for Croatia's Mario Ancic, our very own Super Mario. As surely they are aware, even in places like Mongolia or the Matto Grosso, Ancic remains the last man to have beaten Roger Federer on Centre Court. That was six years ago, in 2002, and since then Ancic has played a time or two on the world's most famous tennis arena in getting to the 2004 semi-finals and 2006 quarters. But this return is an especially emotional one for him after a 2007 season wrecked by that debilitating virus mononucleosis, followed by a shoulder injury. Now Mario is back and aiming towards super status once more, with the good wishes of his legion of British fans, but not, perhaps, of this afternoon's opponent, David Ferrer, who is here as fifth seed mainly on the strength of clay court achievements. But as another clay courter called Rafael Nadal has proved, men of clay can tread the grass is some style, so Super Mario will regard this as a huge win should he pull it off. Like Mauresmo, Lleyton Hewitt is another former Wimbledeon champion who has fallen on harder times of late. He has been hobbled by a hip injury, for a start, but being Lleyton he is a battler because he is an Aussie, and therefore never to be counted out until the scoreboard says so. Hewitt, accorded an appearance on Court One on the opening day, goes back there to start the afternoon's show by taking on Simone Bolelli, a 22-year-old dentist's son from Bologna. They met here a year ago in the second round and Bolelli's share of the match was a measly five games. So this should be Lleyton's chance to progress into the fourth round, thus maintaining his fine record since that memorable title year of 2002. Now that Ana Ivanovic, The Net Cord Girl, has presumably recovered her breath from the narrowness of joining the other big names heading for the exit, she is awarded a return to Court One, scene of her scrambled win over Nathalie Dechy. The tournament's number one seed has recorded one win over today's opponent, Zheng Jie, two years ago in a tight three-setter in Montreal. But no way is this column going to predict another straightforward win for Ana after the three-and-a-half hours of agony she subjected us to against Dechy. Welcome back off Cloud Nine to Marat Safin, who has finally stopped complaining about everything Wimbledon stands for and offered his deepest thanks to the people responsible for slowing up the grass to a pace he can thrive on. Traditionally, the surface gets faster the deeper we go into the tournament but the man who saw off Djokovic should have too much in his armoury for another Italian, Andreas Seppi. Or so he and all of Russia will be hoping.
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