NorCal players face tough openers at Wimbledon

No. 28 seed Sam Querrey drew Lukas Rosol, who stunned
Rafael Nadal in the second round at Wimbledon in 2012,
in this year's tournament. 2014 photo by Paul Bauman

   All four Northern California singles representatives face tough first-round matches at Wimbledon.
   The draw was held Friday, and play is scheduled to begin on Monday.
   San Francisco native Sam Querrey, whose No. 28 seeding matches his age, will face Lukas Rosol, a 30-year-old Czech who stunned two-time Wimbledon champion Rafael Nadal in the second round in 2012 at the All England Club.
   The winner of the match between the 6-foot-6 (1.98-meter) Querrey and the 6-foot-5 (1.96-meter) Rosol could face top seed Novak Djokovic, the two-time defending champion and three-time titlist overall, in the third round.
   Dmitry Tursunov, a 33-year-old Moscow native who trains in the Sacramento suburb of Granite Bay, will meet No. 31 seed Joao Sousa of Portugal.
   But Sousa has never won a main-draw match at Wimbledon, losing to Stan Wawrinka in straight sets in the past two years.
   The injury-plagued Tursunov reached the fourth round at Wimbledon in 2005 and 2006 but hasn't won a singles match there in five years.
   Dennis Novikov, a Moscow native who grew up in San Jose, Calif.,  and now lives in nearby Milpitas, will make his Wimbledon main-draw debut against Australia's Luke Saville, the 2011 boys singles champion, in a matchup of 22-year-old qualifiers.
   The winners of the Tursunov and Novikov matches will play each other in the second round.
   And Nicole Gibbs, a 23-year-old former Stanford star living in Marina del Rey in the Los Angeles area, will take on Belgium's Kirsten Flipkens, a Wimbledon semifinalist in 2013. Gibbs seeks her first Wimbledon main-draw victory.
   There is one consolation for first-round losers in singles at Wimbledon. Each pockets $41,000.