The cinch Championships semi-finals take place at the Queens Club on Saturday on a day where for the first time this week we might need to dodge some rain at the latest grass court ATP 500 competition.
In among the raindrops there will be two established seeded stars on show, both taking on an unseeded player will be looking to turn this week into something special and boost their ranking significantly ahead of Wimbledon.
Botic van de Zandschulp vs Matteo Berrettini
The first of the two semi-finals sees the defending champion Matteo Berrettini looking to not only make it into a second successive final here but also a second straight final in as many weeks after he reached the title match in Stuttgart a week ago. His opponent will be the rising Dutch star Botic van de Zandschulp.
It is hard to work out the Dutchman this week because his quarter final opponent Alejandro Davidovich Fokina seemed to have the towel ready to go in before he stepped out onto the court. At the same time it isn’t much easier to assess Berrettini because he has been suffering with blisters and then in the quarter final he faced Tommy Paul who looked a bit out of his depth. If I was sure about van de Zandschulp I’d have taken the defending champion on here but I’m not sure about him so I’ll leave this first semi-final alone.
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Filip Krajinovic vs Marin Cilic
The second semi-final sees the former champion Marin Cilic looking to make it through to another Queens final when he takes on a player who is clearly enjoying his best run on a grass court this week having not won a match on the surface prior to it in Filip Krajinovic.
You could argue that Krajinovic has had a comfortable run this week but there has been a lot to like about the way he has come through the draw. Krajinovic has had to come through a couple of three set matches in the last two rounds but at no stage has he given up the fight unlike others this week. Cilic has only dropped one set on his way to this semi-final but he’s been taken to a couple of tiebreaks and had they gone against him then those matches could have been completely different. Nevertheless, he’s the rightful favourite here but in slower conditions I think Krajinovic has enough about him to keep the Croatian honest and keep him on court long enough for there to be more than 21.5 games in this one.
Tips
Back F.Krajinovic vs M.Cilic – Over 21.5 games for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with Bet365
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