A Rare Summer Stretch in the Grass For those who still enjoy their tennis the old-fashioned way - on grass - this is an encouraging moment. Wimbledon begins Monday on the well-tended lawns of the All England Club, and after business as usual concludes there on July 8, most of the world's best players will return for a rare, if not quite unprecedented, encore less than three weeks later when the Summer Olympic tournament is played in the same spot. Meanwhile, Wimbledon officials, according to Britain's Daily Mail, are preparing an earnest push to add a third week of grass-court tennis to the sport's overstuffed schedule between the French Open and Wimbledon, perhaps as early as 2014. That would be welcome considering that grass was once the dominant surface in a sport whose original name, after all, is lawn tennis. But for now, what matters most is what will happen at Wimbledon during Wimbledon, and the potential men's and women's champions are hardly legion. The last nine major titles for the men have been won by either Novak Djokovic or Rafael Nadal, who have also set a record by meeting in the last four Grand Slam finals. Expand the research a few years further and 28 of the last 29 major titles have been won by Djokovic, Nadal or Roger Federer, now the third but still hungry man in the equation. The last time one of the big three did not win Wimbledon was in 2002, when Lleyton Hewitt defeated David Nalbandian for the title. Nalbandian has been back in the news on grass this season for being defaulted from the final at Queen's Club after kicking a court barrier in anger and injuring a linesman. Hewitt has been much more discreet - too discreet to avoid more retirement chatter as he is now ranked No.202 and required a wildcard to play at Wimbledon. Goran Ivanisevic had a late-career run to the title as a wildcard in 2001, but this is another era, and it is difficult to imagine anyone other than Andy Murray - and perhaps Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, if he is healthy - coming between the top three and the trophy. But neither Murray, whose results have fluctuated under his new coach, Ivan Lendl, nor Tsonga has won a major title, which only reinforces the mental barrier. "Murray does have the best chance, but realistically you can't really back Murray to win one of these things until he does," said the coach and analyst Darren Cahill, who has worked with Murray in the past. "You don't make four semis or better last year without being good enough to do it at the Slams," Cahill said. And I feel like the other big factor Murray has going for him is he still has that No.4 seeding, which is huge because that means he has to go through two of those guys. Everybody else has to go through three of those guys. Djokovic, No.1, still holds three of the four Grand Slam singles titles, including Wimbledon. But his loss in the two-day French Open final was his third straight - all on clay - to Nadal. Now comes grass, and in Cahill's view, the subtle difference so far between Djokovic in 2011 and in 2012 is patience, perhaps linked to a slight drop in physical reserves. "Last year, time was not a factor when it came to Novak's tennis matches," Cahill said. That meant he had the luxury to settle into a match and play the way he was made to play. We're talking very small fractions but I feel that just very, very slightly he's gone away from working the point a little like he did last year and being a little more patient and waiting for that right ball. I feel at times he's looked to finish the point a little bit too quickly. The women don't have a big two or big three at this still-unsettled stage. But it certainly seems right to pick Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova as dual favorites heading into Wimbledon. Williams was fit and on a roll until she blew a lead in the first round of the French Open against Virginie Razzano. She then remained in France to train after her shock defeat. But Williams carries much less emotional baggage at Wimbledon, where she has won four times and gets to play plenty of quick points because of her huge, technically sound serve. The question is whether her recent run of disappointments at Grand Slam tournaments will affect her equilibrium. She was upset in the U.S. Open final last year by Samantha Stosur and also upset in the fourth round of the Australian Open this year by Ekaterina Makarova. "I think she puts so much now into the Grand Slams and that's all that's important in her mind," said Lindsay Davenport, Williams's former rival who is now a Tennis Channel television analyst. Maybe that's why Serena's winning these other tournaments that she used to not really care about, because there's so much less pressure on her. Sharapova, back at No.1 for the first time in four years after completing the career Grand Slam in Paris, has not won Wimbledon since 2004, when she beat Williams in the final at age 17.