ContinueAndy Murray has been handed a difficult route in his attempt to win gold for Great Britain in the Olympic tennis tournament at Wimbledon.
Murray’s first round opponent is Switzerland’s Stanislas Wawrinka, who claimed a gold medal in the doubles category in Beijing in 2008. Should the Scot overcome the world number 26, Murray will have the slightly easier task of overcoming Jarkko Nieminen of Finland or India's Somdev Devvarman in the second round, both of whom Murray has seen off in recent grand slams tournaments.
From then, Murray can look forward to typically testing encounters against French 16th seed Richard Gasquet in the third round, sixth seed Tomas Berdych of the Czech Republic in the quarter-finals and world number two Novak Djokovic in the last four.
As there are only 16 seeds in a 64-man field instead of the 32 out of 128 who are seeded at the grand slam tournaments, the potential for tighter, but increasingly intriguing ties from the off exists.
Murray’s previous appearance at the Olympics ended briefly, losing out in the first round to Chinese Taipei’s Lu Yen-Hsun in the Beijing games four years ago. Third seed Murray will be seen as a favourite against Wawrinka in the opening round, with Murray just ahead in their past meetings with six wins out of ten.
However, one of those losses still remains one of Murray’s most disappointing losses, when Wawinka knocked him out in the fourth round of the US Open just two years ago.
The previous occasion where the two met at Wimbledon saw Murray beat Wawrinka beat the Swiss in five sets in 2009.
