In keeping with tradition Thursday is the ladies semi-final day at Wimbledon Tennis with all eyes on the Williams sisters on Centre Court to see if they can set up a final between the two. Looking to deny them that outcome are Angelique Kerber and Elena Vesnina on what promises to be an intriguing day of last four action.
Wednesday Recap
Wednesday was one of those days where we deserved a whole lot more than we got. Our quarter punt on Marin Cilic looked safe as houses when he went 2-0 up on Roger Federer and when he had 0-40 on the Federer serve at 3-3 in the third set we were off to collect only for him to fail to take any of those chances and ultimately end up losing the match in a decider to end both our quarter bet and our outright one.
If that wasn’t bad enough over on Court 1 we lost the Sam Querrey handicap but all of 0.5 games so really it was a day to forget on the betting front although the one bright spot did come from the fact Andy Murray survived a five set marathon to see off Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. He will now face Tomas Berdych for a place in the final after the Czech breezed past Lucas Pouille.
Serena Williams vs Elena Vesnina
As you would expect the defending champion Serena heads into this match as an overwhelming favourite and I think that is right but there have been times in the last couple of games where Serena hasn’t been her dominating self and that might give Vesnina some hope.
Clearly the Russian is going to have to play her very best tennis in this match and hope that Serena has an off day but she will know that having lost to Serena in all four of their previous meetings and only winning 19 games in those four matches.
These two will be sick of the sight of each other by the end of the day because they have a doubles match against each other too but in this singles match you would expect Serena to be too powerful for Vesnina but the Russian deserves some respect having taken care of the likes of Dominika Cibulkova, Andrea Petkovic and Ekaterina Makarova and she has only dropped one set in the tournament.
My gut instinct tells me that Vesnina is playing well enough to cover the 5.5 game handicap but this is the first time she has been in a Grand Slam semi-final so she might be a little too nervous for me to put any money on it so I’ll sit this one out.
Angelique Kerber vs Venus Williams
This match promises to be of really high quality as both women appear to be playing some lovely stuff. There was a real ruthless streak in the way Kerber dealt with the challenge of Simona Halep in the previous round while Venus Williams has been just as authoritative in her last couple of matches.
I wouldn’t be surprised if this one goes three sets but having backed Kerber outright I’m already on her at effectively 12.5/1 to win this match so I’ve no need to go in on her again even though I think she’ll win. I think her defensive play is much stronger than Venus’ particularly in the movement and she has the ability to find angles which will be tough for Venus to counter.
These two met here in the 2012 Olympics and Kerber won in two tie-breaks. I wouldn’t be surprised to see something similar here but I think and I hope Kerber will come through but I can just sit this one out and hope the German delivers the place part of the outright with a win here.
Best of the Rest
As has been the case all week the doubles tournaments continue to play catch up on Thursday and there are lots of matches going on all over the place but with the amount of tennis the teams have had to play fatigue really is playing a part and we’re seeing shock results because of that.
On Wednesday alone the number two and three seeds in the men’s doubles went out as the Bryan Brothers and Jamie Murray & Bruno Soares were beaten in their respective matches and those results were enough of a warning sign to leave the doubles alone until the very latter stages.
Tips
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