ZIMBABWE women’s doubles tennis specialist Cara Black and her partner New Zealander Marina Erakovic have been handed a tricky draw for the Wimbledon Tennis Championships which served off in London yesterday.
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The duo, who are the 11th seeds for the third Grand Slam tournament of the year, have been drawn to face British home favourite Heather Watson and Mervana Jugic-Salkic from Bosnia and Herzegovina in the first round later this week.
The draw, which was confirmed on Sunday evening, saw Black’s partner Erakovic being drawn to face her former partner Watson.
Erakovic teamed up with Watson in mid-2012 and the pair won the doubles’ titles at Stanford and Dallas in the US. Those two successes took the Aucklander’s career tally of WTA doubles titles to seven.
However, Erakovic teamed up with Black in May this year when Watson was down with an injury and Black parted ways with Australian Anastasia Rodionova and the newly found partnership has blossomed since then.
The pair has enjoyed a good record in five tournaments together this year, reaching WTA finals in Madrid, Strasbourg and most recently in Birmingham.
Black and Erakovic also made the quarter-finals at the French Open earlier this month, however they were eliminated by the experienced duo of Flavia Pennetta from Italy and Russian Elena Vesnina in the first round at Eastbourne early this week.
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Black is a doubles specialist, with 55 WTA titles to her name, including a combined 10 in doubles and mixed doubles at Grand Slam tournaments.
Meanwhile, Erakovic has seven WTA doubles titles and has a best result at Wimbledon of doubles semifinals in 2011.
Black is also scheduled to play in the mixed doubles, but the draw for the competition will only be made available tomorrow.
