Federer handed a tough draw at Wimbledon

But defending champion Andy Murray, struggling to reach 100 percent fitness because of a sore hip, was given a boost as he will avoid most of the more dangerous opponents in the first week. The 35-year-old Federer, who is also trying to become the oldest winner in the open era, is the bookmakers’ favourite, having won the warm-up event in Halle last weekend.

To win his eighth title, though, he may have to beat Alexander Zverev, Grigor Dimitrov, last year’s finalist Milos Raonic and three-times champion Novak Djokovic just to get to the final. Speaking before the draw, former world number one Mats Wilander said Federer, who won his 18th Grand Slam title at the Australian Open in January, had to watch out for some of the younger guns. 

“I think Federer’s the favourite but there are a lot of young guys that are very fearless of the older guys these days,” he said. 

“They don’t really have that intimidation factor with Kyrgios and Raonic and Zverev, they don’t really care about the best 

players, they just play their game, and if it works, it works.” Murray looked to be walking with a limp after practice at Wimbledon on Friday, having missed two days of preparation because of the sore hip.

Beaten in the first round at Queen’s Club last week, the twotime champion will be thankful to be avoiding Raonic, Dimitrov, Zverev, Juan Martin Del Potro, Dominic Thiem and Feliciano Lopez, the Spaniard who won the Aegon Championships at London’s Queen’s Club. 

The Scot will open his title defence against a qualifier on Monday and could play Dustin Brown of Germany in round two, with Nick Kyrgios a potential fourth-round opponent. If he gets through that, Stan Wawrinka, who beat him to reach the French Open final earlier in the month, would be his likely seeded quarter-final opponent.