32 players started the week in the main draw of the Aegon Championships at Queens Club and after a stop start week of highs and lows, intriguing and fascinating tennis we are left with two men to battle it out for probably the biggest grass court trophy outside of Wimbledon.
Top seed and defending champion Andy Murray takes on the third seed and ever improving Milos Raonic in a battle which doesn’t just pit two great players of the modern era together but also two fantastic players of a past era together as the coaches of the two are Ivan Lendl and John McEnroe. This should be a fascinating final.
Andy Murray
It has been an up and down week for Andy Murray so far but when the pressure has cranked up he has delivered like he so often does. He was taken to a couple of tie-breaks by a confident Nicolas Mahut in the first round which could serve as a nice prelude to this final.
In each of the last two matches the Briton has gone the distance and hasn’t really served as well as he can do. His serve might be under a little more pressure here because if he does drop his serve he might not get it back as easily as he has been able to over the course of the week so it will be fascinating to see how he manages his way through the match.
Milos Raonic
If Murray has struggled with his serve at times the same can’t be levelled at the Canadian. He has been almost foot perfect so far this week and has not had his serve broken in 47 service games. You could argue that in Roberto Bautista-Agut and Bernard Tomic he hasn’t faced a receiver of Murray’s class and that would be right but that’s still a fair effort.
Raonic hasn’t dropped a set since the opening round of the competition when he lost a tie-break to Nick Kyrgios in a set he actually dominated. That shows that Raonic isn’t just serving well but that his all-round game is in good order too and he’s entitled to be a match for Murray here.
Betting
I don’t think this will be straight forward for Murray. We’ve known Raonic can play on grass for a while. He has made the Wimbledon semi-final a couple of years ago and with his big serve and big forehand he has all the tools to go well.
Murray is the ultimate returner but isn’t serving as well as he would like so for once Raonic might have another way to win rather than just overpower someone with that serve of his. Clearly his all-round game is improving and the longer he works with John McEnroe his intent and aggression should really flourish too.
These two met in an epic semi-final at the Australian Open earlier in the year and that went the distance and I fancy this one might too. While we’ve not seen peak Murray this week he knows how to hang around in matches and find ways to get the job done. Raonic has been the best player so far this week so we’re all set up for a three setter or two long sets so I’m on over 23.5 games here.
Tips
WON – Back Over 23.5 games for a 4/10 stake at 2.00 with Bet365
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