Strawberry fields forever

This year we get Wimbledon Mark I and Mark II thanks to the London Games, but the former remains the better, comments Tym Glaser

Oh boy, the strawberry vendors of London must be doing cartwheels right now.

They get two bites of the fruit this year as cream and strawberry scoffing tennis fans will head to SW19 for not one, but two major events this year.

On Monday, the most famous of racquet tournaments will serve off at the All-England Club and then, a mere few weeks later, many of those same protagonists will be back there again for the Olympics.

It's a double-dip for the ages.

The reintroduction of tennis at the Seoul Games in 1988 - after a 64-year Olympic breather - was regarded as more novelty than keen competition, but the lure of the gold has taken hold among the playing ranks and the Games crown is now only behind the four Grand Slam events in prestige.

The three best men's players in the world, Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer, have made no secret of the fact that they want a little medal to sit atop all the prizes in their trophy cabinets - or rooms. Then there's world No 4 Andy Murray, the Scot who will represent host Britain at the Games and have to weather the feat of carrying that nation's tennis hopes on his back for about a month. Good luck with that, Andy boy!

The Olympics may take some of the luster from Wimbledon Mark I, but it won't surpass the two-week tennis-fest, which is now 135 years young.

Games tennis is still too new; Wimbledon too steeped in history.

Don't believe me? OK, who won the men's and women's singles at the Beijing Games in 2008?

Give up? Rafa and Elena Dementieva.

Now, who won Wimbledon last year? Easy-peasy.

The Djoker and Petra Kvitova (OK, I'll give you the latter may have been a wee bit hard to remember).

As much as the stars want to fossick for gold in London, they more want to be the last man and woman standing after two weeks of running around on those hallowed grass courts for the biggest title in the game.

Djokovic wants to defend his crown, Nadal wants to prove he remains an all-court threat and not just the King of Clay and Federer wants title No 7 to equal Pete Sampras' Open era record at the London shrine to tennis.

And then there's Murray, who has bravely followed Tim Henman's quixotic trail in an attempt to become the first British male to win the home crown since Fred Perry completed a hat-trick of titles only 76 years ago.

Anyway, the first 2012 Battle of Wimbledon should come down to those four as they have created quite a gulf between themselves and the rest of the fellows on tour.

Let's count Murray out because he's British ... that leaves the Big Three (no, not LeBron, Dwyane and Bosh).

Federer's grass pedigree is impeccable, but the younger Rafa and Djoker have his measure now. If you want to double up on your Black Caviar winnings from Royal Ascot, go with the Spanish Bull who is playing the best tennis of his life ... and coming off a tremendous French Open campaign.

As for the women, well, that's a raffle.

Lanky Maria Sharapova has finally fought off the injury bug and appears to be the dominant player most pundits expected her to be, but she's never won more than one Slam in any calendar year and she used up that card at the French.

The Williams sisters, Venus (five) and Serena (four), share nine titles between them at Wimbledon, but it's hard to gauge where they are at with their games as they near the twilight of stellar careers.

The most likely threats to the Russian will more likely come from Kvitova, and last year's other Slam winners (not counting soon-to-be-retired-again Kim Clijsters) Li Na of China and Aussie Samantha Stosur.

All three have games seemingly custom-made for the fast-paced grass courts.

I'll toss my weight atop the expectations of 1.4 billion Chinese to further burden Li by saying the feisty lass from Wuhan will claim her second Slam crow n.

Well, what the heck, if she doesn't, she can always come back a few weeks later.

Tym Glaser is a senior sports copy editor who is quite partial to a strawberry or two ... with a glass of champers. He can be contacted at tymglaser@chinadaily.com.cn