The second round of the singles action at Wimbledon is due to conclude on Thursday, although with the threat of showers around it will be interesting to see if the organisers can get all the matches through at SW19.
If they do then we will have seen the likes of Rafael Nadal, Petra Kvitova, Iga Swiatek, Stefanos Tsitsipas and Paula Badosa all in action on a fourth day of the tournament which has a lot to live up to based on what we’ve seen so far.
Day 3 Recap
It was not a day to be British on Centre Court on Wednesday with Emma Raducanu and Andy Murray both hitting the dust. The highest seed in the men’s draw to fall so far went on Wednesday too when Casper Ruud was dumped out but there were routine wins for the likes of Novak Djokovic, Maria Sakkari and Carlos Alcaraz. We also lost the second seed in the women’s draw as Anett Kontaveit won just four games in her exit.
It was another profitable day for us on Wednesday with two of the three bets that were posted in our preview being completed and both of them winning. Ugo Humbert came from a set down to Casper Ruud to win in four sets to get us going and then Marie Bouzkova blitzed Ann Li. We need a turnaround from Qiang Wang when she resumes a set down against Heather Watson though. Unfortunately the held over match from Tuesday didn’t go our way with Donna Vekic going down to Jessica Pegula.
Centre Court
Katie Boulter will be hoping she can end the run of losing British players on Centre Court when the Briton opens up the action on Thursday. She will meet a Karolina Pliskova who was a finalist here last year but who lost to the Brit in Eastbourne just last week. When they are done we will see Rafael Nadal continuing his quest for the calendar slam when he goes up against Ricardas Berankis before the American teenager has the chance to round off the show as Coco Gauff meets Mihaela Buzarnescu.
Court 1
The Mallorca champion from last week gets us underway over on Court 1 when Stefanos Tsitsipas clashes with Jordan Thompson who might just be suited to that particular challenge. There is one women’s match on Court 1 on Thursday and it sees the runaway world number one Iga Swiatek continuing her quest for a second successive major title when she meets Lesley Pattinama Kerkhove in what it has to be said looks like a mismatch. The former Eastbourne champion Alex de Minaur is the final seed on this court. He meets the rising British star Jack Draper.
Court 2
The fourth seed in the women’s draw will start the action out on Court 2 on Thursday when Paula Badosa looks for another win. She will meet the Romanian player Irina Bara before all sorts of shenanigans could take place when Nick Kyrgios meets the Queens finalist Filip Krajinovic in one of the standout matches of the day. British interest comes on this court in the third match on the schedule when Harriet Dart meets Jessica Pegula before we round off the day with the 2019 winner Simona Halep who goes up against Kirsten Flipkens.
Court 3
The Eastbourne champion Petra Kvitova has looked in decent order so far this week and she will look to move into the third round here once again at the expense of Ana Bogdan before the British player Liam Broady takes on Diego Schwartzman in a match where an upset has the potential to happen. That will actually be the last match on this court unless the schedule is modified because Roberto Bautista Agut was expected to be on last but he has withdrawn due to testing positive for Covid-19.
Best of the Rest
The singles action on the outside courts is beginning to thin out a little bit but those with ground passes or on the live streams will still be able to see some decent action. Taylor Fritz, Bianca Andreescu and Denis Shapovalov are some of the big names out on Court 12 while on Court 18 Botic van de Zandschulp, Barbora Krejcikova and Amanda Anisimova are seeded players in action. Lorenzo Sonego, the Eastbourne finalist Maxime Cressy and Jenson Brooksby are other recognisable players dotted around the outside courts.
Special Offer
OPEN AN ACCOUNT WITH 888SPORT AND BET £10 TO GET £30 IN FREE BETS PLUS A £10 CASINO BONUS! PERFECT OFFER TO USE ON THIS TOURNAMENT! CLICK THE IMAGE BELOW TO JOIN. USE CODE 30F. NEW ACCOUNTS ONLY. 18+ T&Cs apply (See image for significant terms). Gamble Aware.
Men’s Betting
Two men who have won a lot of matches on the grass this season are Maxime Cressy and Jack Sock and I expect their match to be quite a tight contest in terms of the quality of both men behind their serve. I don’t think we are rewriting anything to suggest there are going to be a couple of tiebreaks in this match if not more so with a games line of 41.5 all we are looking for is this one to go to a fourth set and that line surely gets covered. I think Cressy is a worthy favourite, he was excellent against Felix Auger-Aliassime in the opening round, but Sock has won a number of three set matches on the grass recently so I think he has a set in him at the very least. The over looks an obvious play here and I’ll happily get on.
When the draw came out I was plotting the way through for the time to take Denis Shapovalov on and I think that time has come here. Brandon Nakashima isn’t someone who you would immediate think would win a lot of matches on grass but he has done just that this season. He also has a couple of wins over Sam Querrey which are never bad results on this surface and shows that he can handle a big serve. Shapovalov has looked terrible for way too long now and while it will boost confidence which must have been on the floor coming into this tournament, his first round win had nothing convincing about it so he looks there for the taking. That win in the first round was his first in four attempts on grass this season and snapped a six match losing streak on all surfaces. He visibly doesn’t look at it at the minute and he’s way too short here against a guy who might not be naturally suited to grass but who does at least have some winning form on it.
Women’s Betting
There is just the one which catches the eye in the women’s draw to go with what we hope will be a turnaround from Qiang Wang in the match which was held over from Wednesday. That comes in the form of the quarter finalist from last season, Viktorija Golubic to take care of a Barbora Krejcikova who I’m not convinced likes grass but even if she does this will be just her fourth match since she has come back from an injury which kept her out since February.
Even one of those matches, the opener at the French Open which she lost, you sense she only played because she was the defending champion. The doubles specialist is clearly still working her way to fitness but the Swiss player has no such problems. She hasn’t convinced with results in the last couple of weeks but in Nottingham at the beginning of the grass season she was holding her own with Emma Raducanu and beat fellow Wimbledon quarter finalist from a year ago Ajla Tomljanovic before going down to Alison Riske in the semi-final. She had a good win over Andrea Petkovic here in the first round with a 19:13 winners to unforced errors ratio whereas in her first round match Krejcikova was 12:25 in the same statistics. Golubic looks overpriced on form and fitness here.
Tips
Back M.Cressy vs J.Sock – Over 41.5 games for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with Bet365
Back B.Nakashima to beat D.Shapovalov for a 3/10 stake at 2.30 with William Hill
Back him here:
Back V.Golubic to beat B.Krejcikova for a 3/10 stake at 2.40 with BetVictor
Back her here:
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2022
