Wimbledon 2008 - 23 June to 6 July

Tickets online

Details of any similar arrangements for this year will be communicated initially to those people who have registered for regular Wimbledon e-mail newsletters via the Wimbledon website www.wimbledon.org.

Order of Play

• The decision not to play on Middle Sunday was correct at the time given all the information to hand and the poor weather expected for the Sunday itself.

• Play on middle Sunday creates its own tensions in the future Order of Play (shortage of matches elsewhere) and therefore at Wimbledon will continue to remain an emergency option.

• There are no plans to start the Fortnight earlier, eg on the Sunday.

The Draw And Seedings

• The draw will take place on Friday 20 June, 10.00am

• Seedings to be announced on Wednesday 18 June, around midda

Sania Mirza

Sania Mirza is a tennis diva from India. She is a very popular name in India, favourite among youths. Sania is a hard-working, overachieving phenomenal who has stayed remarkably down-to-earth. This tennis sensation is dispatching foes at a historic rate. Sania is the first Indian woman to advance to the fourth round of a Grand Slam tournament, the first to win a WTA singles title and the first to win a junior Grand Slam title.

Sania Mirza holds the distinction of being the first Indian woman to be seeded in a Grand Slam tennis tournament when she was seeded 26th in the 2007 U.S. Open. Earlier in 2005, she had become the first Indian woman to reach the fourth round of a Grand Slam tournament at the 2005 U.S. Open, defeating Mashona Washington, Maria Elena Camerin and Marion Bartoli. In 2004, she finished runner up at the Asian Tennis Championship. In 2005, Mirza reached the third round of the Australian Open, losing to eventual champion Serena Williams. On February 12, 2005, she became the first Indian woman to win a WTA singles title, defeating Alyona Bondarenko of Ukraine in the Hyderabad Open Finals.

Mirza won the 2003 Wimbledon Championships Girls' Doubles title, teaming up with Alisa Kleybanova of Russia. Mirza does not enjoy clay court. Her best performance in French Open singles has been a second round appearance in 2007.

As of September 2006, Mirza has notched up three top 10 wins against Svetlana Kuznetsova, Nadia Petrova and Martina Hingis.At the 2006 Doha Asian Games, Mirza won the silver in the women's singles category and the gold in the mixed doubles partnering Leander Paes. She was also part of the Indian women's team that won the silver in the team event.

Mirza had the best results of her career during the 2007 summer hardcourt season, finishing eighth in the 2007 U.S. Open Series standings. She reached the final of the Bank of the West Classic and won the doubles event with Shahar Pe'er, and reached the quarterfinals of the Tier 1 Acura Classic.

Martina Hingis

If Martina Hingis had thought that she might settle back behind the microphone at the end of her playing career, such fancies were demolished yesterday when confirmation came that cocaine had been found in her bloodstream during last year’s Wimbledon championships.
A two-year ban has been handed out to the 27-year-old Swiss, who became the world No 1 at 17 and won five grand-slam titles but whose reputation went up in smoke when she took the dramatic decision to “out” herself in November, revealing that an “A” sample had tested positive for the narcotic, a banned substance.
Hingis, who has also been ordered to repay $129,481 (about £65,000) in prize money, denied the charge, calling it “horrendous and monstrous”. She added that she had never taken drugs and felt “100 per cent innocent”. She said: “The reason I have come out with this is because I do not want to have a fight with anti-doping authorities.”
However, the International Tennis Federation said yesterday: “Following a two-day hearing in December 2007, an independent antidoping tribunal found that a sample provided by Ms Hingis at the Wimbledon championships had tested positive for a metabolite of cocaine. The tribunal rejected the suggestion made on behalf of Ms Hingis that there were doubts about the identity and/or integrity of the sample. The tribunal also rejected her plea of no (or no significant) fault or negligence, on the basis that no mitigation was possible as it had not been shown how the cocaine entered her system.”