A summer of sport ahead for Britain

There are several big sporting events in the pipeline for Britain, and the biggest, the London Olympics, is now less than a hundred days away.

The first of these big events is the World Professional Snooker Championship, which opens at Sheffield on Saturday, with the final held over two days May 6-7, finishing on the Bank Holiday Monday as usual. The draw for the first round is already up. The home of world snooker is here. Last year's winner was Scotsman John Higgins, who picked up the trophy for the 4th time. The home favourite for Wimbledon will of course be another Scotsman, the Pride of Dunblane, Andrew Murray, who is currently rated number 4 in the world. The preliminaries for the world's most prestigious tennis championships begin on June 11 when the wild card entries play off. Full details of the Wimbledon Championship can be found here. The big question is can Murray do what no British man has done since the 1930s and what no Scotsman has ever done? While it is impossible to write him off, it is a safe thing to say that the three men ranked above him: world number one Djokovic, clay court specialist Nadal and former Wimbledon kingpin Federer make this arguably the strongest field ever. If Murray wins this, the world will be his lobster, as a certain South London spiv would say. Talking of spivs, if you are going to Wimbledon, don't buy tickets from unofficial sources under any circumstances, or you may end up with a big hole in your pocket and nothing to show for it. Full details of the London Olympics can be found on the official site, but if you fancy a mental challenge instead, there is the Mind Sports Olympiad, which will be held in London from August 18-27; last year this featured the slightly surreal chess diving. We haven't mentioned the many other fixtures such as the Oaks and Derby, which will be held at Epsom as usual, but if you don't fancy a flutter, especially if you lost your shirt last year, there is always the world conquer championships in October.