The second round reaches a conclusion and the third round will begin on another busy day at Wimbledon on Friday with all the courts packed with matches as the event looks to get back on schedule after the rains of earlier in the week.
Some really big names are in action across the schedule on Friday so it promises to be a really exciting day of tennis if the rain stays away. Sadly the forecast isn’t the best it has to be said.
Thursday Recap
It was the first day in three without any rain and it was our best betting day of the tournament too which probably isn’t a coincidence. All three bets we put up in our Day 4 preview won to get us underway for the tournament after a bit of an early struggle.
It might have been a good day for our bets but it was anything but that for the seeded players with no fewer than 16 seeds falling from the two singles draws on a crazy day at SW19. The biggest of them was the second seed in the women’s draw Garbine Muguruza who was ruthlessly turned over by someone outside the world’s top 100.
Among the other seeds to fall were David Ferrer, Dominic Thiem, Benoit Paire, Jo Konta, Gilles Simon, Sam Stosur, Ivo Karlovic and Viktor Troicki who certainly didn’t go quietly after a verbal volley at the umpire!
Andy Murray made it safely through to the third round though as did Kei Nishikori while Agnieszka Radwanska had to come from a set down and a break down in the third set to secure her passage through.
Centre Court
There is a cracking line up on Centre on Friday which begins with the intriguing second round match between Juam Martin del Potro and Stan Wawrinka, a match between two Grand Slam winners. They are followed by Serena Williams and Christina McHale and the action concludes with Roger Federer taking on Britain’s Dan Evans.
Court 1
Venus Williams opens up play on Court 1 when she plays the 29th seed Daria Kasatkina and then the world number one Novak Djokovic steps onto court when he faces the big serving Sam Querrey. Jack Sock and Milos Raonic conclude the action in the third and final game.
Court 2
All eyes will be on Court 2 to begin with as the entertainers Nick Kyrgios and Dustin Brown are first up. Petra Kvitova continues her quest to win another Wimbledon title when she faces Ekaterina Makarova in a juicy match up before Kei Nishikori is back on court to take on Andrey Kuznetsov. Finally Simona Halep faces Kiki Bertens in one of the matches of the day.
Court 3
Tomas Berdych gets things going on Friday on this court. He takes on Benjamin Becker before Britain’s Tara Moore goes up against Svetlana Kuznetsova in a second round match. David Goffin takes on Denis Istomin and then Jana Cepelova looks to build on her win over Garbine Muguruza when she faces Lucie Safarova.
Best of the Rest
With the organisers playing catch up there are still some really big names on the minor courts including Marin Cilic, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, Angelique Kerber, John Isner and Madison Keys among others which should provide plenty of entertainment for those with ground passes for the day.
Betting
I’m looking to build on a decent day on Thursday but there are only three bets I like. I didn’t intend to go mad anyway with the rain likely to hold up proceedings throughout the day and those matches that are late on the schedule might not get on so we can always have another look at them ahead of Saturday’s action.
The first bet comes in the match between David Goffin and Denis Istomin. Goffin has cruised through his draw so far and only dropped 14 games in his two matches and in truth he looks very good. I took on Denis Istomin on in the previous round to no avail but I have to take him on again.
Almagro served for the second set against Istomin in the second round and had he held and won that set he may well have gone on to win the match. Goffin won’t give him the same luxuries and after Istomin went five in the first round and three lengthy sets in the previous round it might be that it all catches up with him here. I expect a comfortable Goffin win in this one.
The other two bets are last on their respective courts but I’m going to take the bets now as the value in the price is there for all to see. The first one comes in the Jack Sock vs Milos Raonic match where the 7/4 about there being a tie-break in the first set is just too big to ignore.
In the last 10 sets these two have played six of them have been tie-breaks and one of the sets that wasn’t ended 7-5 so they are no strangers to lengthy sets even on other surfaces let alone on grass where their serves are likely to be even bigger weapons than usual. The regularity these two have of going the distance in sets makes a tie-break extremely likely and the 7/4 is well worth taking.
Going into the women’s draw and Simona Halep and Kiki Bertens are on court against each other in a match I think can go very deep. Halep has looked really good in the tournament so far and brushed Francesca Schiavone away in the previous round but Bertens has been equally as convincing and comes here off the back of that excellent run to the semi-final of the French Open.
With the way these two are playing I fully expect this to go three sets or very close in two so once again the 20.5 games line looks a touch on the low side here in what should be a great match late on in the day.
Tips
WON – Back D.Goffin (-5.5 games) to beat D.Istomin for a 4/10 stake at 2.00 with Boylesports
Back him here:
WON – Back J.Sock vs M.Raonic – 1st Set Tie-Break for a 3/10 stake at 2.75 with Coral
Back it here:
Back K.Bertens vs S.Halep – Over 20.5 games for a 4/10 stake at 1.80 with Winner Sports
Back it here:
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