Wimbledon 2014 – a challenge for Eugenie Bouchard and the other Canadians

LONDON – This year, Canada's Genie Bouchard isn't coming into Wimbledon and taking anyone by surprise. They see her coming a mile away.

And it's as if the draw gods recognized this, and tried to give the 20-year-old from Montreal the most challenging road possible.

Bouchard, seeded No. 13, could have drawn a wild card, a qualifier, or a player ranked No. 100 in the world for her first-round match, which will be played on Tuesday. Instead, she got Slovak veteran Daniela Hantuchova.

Hantuchova, once ranked as high as No. 3, is now 31 years old and recently dropped just enough in the rankings to fall out of the top 32, and therefore comes into the tournament unseeded. She is a former Wimbledon quarter-finalist and has made the fourth round two other times. On the plus side for Bouchard, none of that is recent history. Indeed, Hantuchova has lost in the first round the last two years.

But it's still a quality first round, and the first meeting between the two. Bouchard's road gets more difficult after her second round, which should be routine. She then might meet No. 20 seed Andrea Petkovic, who is probably the toughest of the players she might have drawn.

Petkovic has been a top-10 player; but she's making her way back from injury and is almost there, after a semi-final effort at the French Open that matched Bouchard's result. Most importantly, she's 3-0 against Bouchard in their careers.

Most recently, the two played at the Family Circle Cup, on the Har-Tru in Charleston, S.C. in April. Bouchard started on fire and even seemed to have the match in hand late in the third set, but ran out of gas after a tough week; Petkovic came back and closed it out, and ended up winning the tournament. The two also met last fall, at an indoor hard-court tournament in Luxembourg that might be a better benchmark for a meeting on the quick grass. Again, Bouchard started well; Petkovic ended up winning 2-6, 7-5, 6-1.

Bouchard is a much better player now than she was last fall. But so is Petkovic.

If the Canadian can get through that, Serena Williams could loom in the fourth round. That's the consequence of Bouchard having fallen just one spot in the rankings. Had she remained at No. 12, the draw construction means she would have faced a No. 5 - No. 8 seed in the round of 16. At No. 13, she gets one of the top four. And she drew the top one.

But all that is far in the future. Everyone has to make their appointed dates.

The other Canadian women in the singles draw have stiff challenges as well. Aleksandra Wozniak, who went through the qualifying, drew No. 10 Dominika Cibulkova in the first round.

The irony there is that you would have expected Cibulkova and Hantuchova to be the opponents when the Canadians hosted the Slovak Republic in April in Quebec City, for the right to be in Fed Cup World Group I in 2015. Neither of that country's top two players made the date; though. And as the draw gods would have it, they now meet the Canadians on arguably the biggest stage in tennis.

Since making her top-10 debut at the end of March, Cibulkova hasn't done much. She dealt with an Achilles' injury, and her clay-court season was basically a write-off. She played just one grass-court warmup, and lost in the first round at s'-Hertogenbosch to Yaroslava Shvedova. So she's not exactly coming in with an overdose of confidence, while Wozniak has had plenty of grass-court play and is feeling pretty good about herself.

Meanwhile, Sharon Fichman drew qualifier Timea Bacsinszky of Switzerland, a qualifier with an asterisk in that she, too, is coming back up the rankings after an injury. But as draws go, it's not a terrible one.

On the men's side, No. 8 seed Milos Raonic is in very good shape by comparison. First up for him is Aussie Matthew Ebden, possibly followed by young American Jack Sock, a talented kid who isn't at Raonic's level yet. But Raonic is familiar with him; they have practiced together. His first potential meeting with a seeded player would be No. 28 Guillermo Garcia-Lopez.

The Spaniard is a fine player, but only once in nine tries at Wimbledon has he gotten past the second round.

After that for Raonic could come Kei Nishikori of Japan, who has a similarly smooth road (potentially) to the fourth round. Those two, a great contrast in styles, have been sniffing around each other, figuratively speaking, for the last little while, neck and neck in the rankings. They were scheduled to meet in the fourth round at the French Open. But Nishikori, who's been struggling with a back issue, didn't make the date.

After that could come Rafael Nadal. But that's a long way off.

Meanwhile, countryman Vasek Pospisil, who was originally unseeded but slid into the No. 31 spot after Nicolas Almagro withdrew this week, is coming into Wimbledon with a whole lot more confidence than he's had for the last few months.

Pospisil gets a fairly tough customer in Robin Haase of the Netherlands in the first round; a slight edge to Pospisil on that one. Haase's Wimbledon record is basically undistinguished, save for the time he took Nadal to five sets in the second round back in 2010. But he does have a big serve.

Not to look ahead, but the potential third-rounder for Pospisil is top seed Novak Djokovic (oh, did we just look ahead?)

Coincidentally, Pospisil will also meet Haase in doubles. He's playing with American Jack Sock, while Haase teams up with countryman Jesse Huta Galung.

As for lucky loser Frank Dancevic, he gets a tall order in 6-foot-10 Croat Ivo Karlovic, the No. 29 seed. It's time for Fancy Frank to be a giant killer.

Bouchard is also playing doubles, teamed up with Brit Heather Watson. They get last year's finalists, No. 6 seeds Aussies Casey Dellacqua and Ashleigh Barty, in the first round. Fichman, who is playing with London-based Croat Donna Vekic, get the tough team of Kimiko Date-Krumm and Barbora Zahlavova Strycova in the first round. The winners of those two matches play each other.

Gloucester, Ont.'s Gabriela Dabrowski and Polish partner Alicja Rosolska drew No. 13 seeds Lucie Hradecka and Michaella Krajicek.

Last, but not least, Toronto's Daniel Nestor and partner Nenad Zimonjic of Serbia are the No. 3 seeds. They have two all-Brit teams in their little section of the draw. And that's not a great omen; check out Nestor and Zimonjic's 2010 Wimbledon effort.

Nestor hasn't had great results here the last three years. But he wasn't playing with Zimonjic; before that 2010 Brit disaster, the pair had won the previous two editions in 2008 and 2009.