Daniel Nestor & Nenad Zimonjic - Getty Images

Wide Open Wimby

June 23, 2008

The men’s doubles draw is wide open at this year’s Wimbledon Championships with no team emerging as the clear favourites to hoist the winner’s trophy. The tournament began with 64 pairings in the hunt for the title and that number will slowly be whittled down to one as the days go by.

The event’s defending champions are Frenchman Arnaud Clement and Michael Llodra, this year’s No. 7 seeds. One year ago they shocked the tennis world when they won the title and then backed up that performance by reaching the final at the Australian Open. They are clearly capable of repeating here again but will be challenged by a number of other veteran teams.

The obvious choice to win their second Wimbledon doubles crown are the Bryan brothers, the world’s top-ranked duo and one of the greatest tandems of all time. Top seeds Bob and Mike, who captured their first trophy at the All England Club two years ago, have won a pair of Masters Series events this season (at Miami and Rome) but have not been as dominant as in past years, opening the door for several other teams.

Perhaps the hottest pairing at this moment is the Canadian-Serbian tandem of Daniel Nestor and Nenad Zimonjic. The No. 2 seeds have reached the final at the last four events they’ve entered, including the French Open, and come into London fresh off a victory on the grass at Queen’s Club. Nestor needs only the Wimbledon crown to complete a career Grand Slam while Zimonjic is still looking for his first men’s doubles Slam championship.

Israeli’s Jonathan Erlich and Andy Ram are seeded third and are hoping to regain the form that saw them win their first major title at the Australian Open and then collect another victory at Indian Wells. Erlich and Ram struggled through most of the clay court season and have not been much better on grass, falling early in both tune-up events leading up to the year’s third Grand Slam tournament.

Rounding out the top four teams are Mahesh Bhupathi (India) and Mark Knowles (Bahamas). This tournament marks the first time they will play together on grass this season as Knowles missed the warm-up events to be with his wife, who gave birth to their second child on the weekend. In the meantime Bhupathi reached the final at ‘s-Hertogenbosch and is seeking his second Wimby crown (he won in 1999 with Leander Paes) while Knowles is after his first.

Aside from those five teams a number of other experienced pairings are in the draw, including reigning US Open champions and No. 5 seeds Simon Aspelin (Sweden) and Julian Knowle (Austria) and the sixth-seeded Czech tandem of Martin Damm and Pavel Vizner.

It’s anyone’s guess as to who will be left standing when the tournament wraps up next week.