What to look out for on the first day of Wimbledon

World Cup fever might be sweeping the nation but All-England Club chief Richard Lewis has said it’ll be a football free-zone.

However, defending men’s champion Roger Federer headlines the opening day at Wimbledon, and with the return of Serena Williams to SW19 there’s enough action to keep those football blues away.

The first Brit to take to the hallowed turf is Katie Swan. She will be the youngest Briton in the main draw of either singles event takes on Romanian Irina-Camelia Begu.

This will be Swan’s second appearance in the full draw, following her debut last year.

She’s 7/2 to make round two here. Begu is at 4/9. With home advantage Swan is 6/4 to take the first set.

Marin Cilic begins his journey against Yoshihito Nishioka on Court No 2. The Croat will be hoping to go one better than last year and finally pick up the Wimbledon trophy.

He could be the biggest danger to the likes of Federer and Novak Djokovic again. He’s 1/33 to advance in this one. And 7/2 to win in Under 25.5 Total Games, Nishioka is 12/1 to win the match.

Stan Wawrinka and Grigor Dimitrov could serve up a feast in the centre-court showpiece.

Like many of the top-names Wawrinka is working his way back from injury and faces a huge test against sixth-seed Dimitrov.

The latter is at 1/4 to win. With Wawrinka 3/1 pick to make it past round one.

Federer opens up on centre-court and is 1/50 to ease past Dusan Lajovic. However, the current champion did lose his last game on grass in the final of the Halle Open.

A repeat result and Lajovic to win is 14/1.

Over in the women’s side of the draw no. four seed Sloane Stephens kicks-off against Donna Vekic on Court No. 1.

Stephens reached the final of the French Open in the last grand-slam but hasn’t made it past the last-eight at Wimbledon yet.

Vekic is a strong opponent though and beat Johanna Konta in the Nottingham Open final last year.

The 22-year-old is an 11/8 pick to advance. Stephens is at 4/7 to beat the Croatian.

Last year’s runner-up Venus Williams looks to go one better start against Johanna Larsson.

Williams is 2/9 to get over the line here. Larsson is at 3/1 but the American is 7/1 to win 2-0.

Serena follows her sister at 5pm. This is only her second grand slam since her sabbatical and faces Arantxa Rus in round one.

Williams, a seven-time Wimbledon winner caused a stir with the rest of the tour when the WTA awarded a seeded position coming into the tournament.

However, she is a 1/12 favourite to claim victory here.

All Odds and Markets correct as of date of publication