Jo Konta

Age: 26. Seed: 6

Forty years on from Virginia Wade's unexpected victory, middle England yearns for this adopted Sydneysider to come up trumps. Suffered a spinal injury due to a nasty fall which caused her withdrawal at Eastbourne, but Konta is a fighter who will give it everything she has got. Tough opener against Su-Wei Hsieh.

Petra Kvitova

Age: 27. Seed: 11

Twice a winner at SW19, Kvitova is back on terrain she knows well after the horror knife attack which left her fearing she may never play tennis again. Won a grass court tournament at Birmingham last week and completing the hat-trick would be a popular storyline. No 3 seed Karolina Pliskova is also part of fearsome Czech challenge.

Jelena Ostapenko (Latvia)

Age: 20. Seed: 13

The road is littered with French Open winners who crumbled in south-west London, not least last year's winner Garbine Muguruza. But while victory in Roland Garros was the fearless, big hitting Latvian's first career title, she did take the junior crown at SW19 in 2014.

Heather Watson (Britain)

Age: 25. Seed: n/a

It wasn't so long ago that this native of the Channel Islands was serving for the match against Serena Williams on Centre Court. Now reliant on a wild card after a series of injuries, most recently an abdominal muscle tear, Watson faces Maryna Zanevska of Belgium first up. She was in decent form on the grass courts of Eastbourne last week.

Venus Williams (USA)

Age: 27. Seed: 10

A semi-finalist here last year, Venus went one better in Australia, going down in two tight sets to her younger sister, Serena. She will attempt to uphold the family honour, but things are complicated by her involvement in a fatal car crash back in Florida.