Serena Williams plans to continue her comeback on Wednesday although she's drawn a tough player in Russia's Vera Zvonareva.
Serena Williams successfully opened her comeback campaign on the WTA Tour on Tuesday as the American faced and defeated Tsvetana Pironkova in the opening round. The match went three sets with Williams only winning the final set by the one break however after not playing for nearly a year, any win has to be considered encouraging.
If Williams can defeat Vera Zvonareva on Wednesday it will be more than encouraging as the Russian is still ranked third in the world. A win by Williams would be convincing evidence that she is ready to challenge for the Wimbledon title, something that many seem to think she will do despite the long layoff
(Williams 11/8, Zvonareva 8/15; bet365).
Williams is 6-1 against Zvonareva heads up with their biggest match coming from last year's Wimbledon final. That was the only match they've ever played on grass and it was not competitive as Williams cruised to a 6-3, 6-2 victory.
The one win that Zvonareva has over Williams came from Cincinnati 2006, interestingly enough at a time when Serena was making another comeback. Ranked just 139th in the world at the time of the match, Williams lost to Zvonareva in straight sets that day.
Tomorrow's match is scheduled second on the Order of Play for center court:
Center Court start 11:30 am (UK)
Venus Williams (USA) vs Ana Ivanovic (SRB) - WTA
[1] Vera Zvonareva (RUS) vs [WC] Serena Williams (USA) - WTA
It looks to be a competitive and interesting affair that will help illustrate just how effective the former world number one is playing right now.
