The quarter finals of Wimbledon 2016 begin on Tuesday with the four ladies matches on the schedule in what should be a decent day of tennis at the SW19 complex. After the rains of last week the tournament is back on track and with Centre Court having the roof we should be fine to get everything concluded on time.
As well as the ladies quarter finals there is one men’s last 16 match to be concluded on Tuesday with Jiri Vesely and Tomas Berdych forced off at two sets apiece when darkness fell while all the doubles tournaments will be looking to catch up on the outside courts as well as some after the singles on the show courts.
Monday Recap
It was a heavy betting day for us on Monday but it didn’t all go completely to plan. Steve Johnson was a break up in a set against Roger Federer but couldn’t convert it into a set win while Nick Kyrgios had one of his shocking days. In fairness we got the Querrey vs Mahut and Venus vs Suarez-Navarro matches completely wrong.
There was better news for us in wins for Dominika Cibulkova and Yaroslava Shvedova and the David Goffin vs Milos Raonic match went the distance for three winners to negate most of the losses. Perhaps just as importantly for us all three of our outrights sailed through without dropping a set and in the case of Marin Cilic he was only on court for just over 30 minutes before Kei Nishikori pulled out injured.
Elsewhere there were wins for Serena Williams and Simona Halep to keep their chances alive while Jo-Wilfried Tsonga saw his friend Richard Gasquet pull out with a back injury in the first set. Tsonga was joined in the quarter final by Lucas Pouille who defeated Bernard Tomic in five sets.
Centre Court
The pick of the quarter finals is first up on Centre as the Australian Open champion Angelique Kerber takes on Simona Halep. Kerber is our outright pick so we’re going to kick back and watch this one and hope that she comes through what should be a tough encounter but safe in the knowledge that she will be a warm favourite in the semi-final should she win.
The other match on the main court sees Serena Williams look to continue her title defence when she takes on the Russian dark horse Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in a match the American is widely expected to win.
These two have met five times in the past with Serena winning on all five occasions and while Pavlyuchenkova has done well to get this far it is hard to see her going any further. She has never gone any further in any Grand Slam and while this is her fourth quarter final of 2016 she is yet to further in any previous tournament so for her first semi to come in a Slam of this kind would be a little far-fetched.
If that wasn’t bad enough for the Russian these two ladies have played 11 sets in their five previous matches and only in two of them has Pavlyuchenkova won more than three games. She has won one set in those 11 and eight of those sets has seen Serena win them 6-1 or 6-2. Serena has handed out a bagel to her last two opponents so she’s buzzing and it is hard to see how the Russian stays within five games here.
Court One
Venus Williams opens up things on Court 1 when she takes on the lowly ranked Yaroslava Shvedova in a match I actually think the woman from Kazakhstan has every chance in. We took her to come through on Monday and she cruised past Lucie Safarova and while Venus did us against Carla Suarez-Navarro I’m not convinced she played all that well.
I give Shvedova every chance here but the tournament is getting real now so I don’t see as much value in her price as I would like. She will be on a show court for the first time in the tournament and this is generally the stage where the unknowns begin to struggle. I might end up regretting it but I’ll leave this one alone although if Kerber wins on Centre I hope these two take plenty out of each other!
Dominika Cibulkova was involved in an absolute gun slinging epic against Agnieszka Radwanska on Monday and I was all set to take her on in this match but her opponent Elena Vesnina ended up going just the same distance which wasn’t ideal from a betting point of view.
I think Cibulkova will struggle to get back up for this match after such an epic and for once I’m not just talking mentally this time there could be physical effects such was the quality of that match with Radwanska. If I could’ve got a 4.5 game start for Vesnina I would have chanced my arm but a 3.5 line is just about low enough for me to sit this one out.
Best of the Rest
On the other courts you would think Tomas Berdych’s experience will see him through eventually when his match with Jiri Vesely resumes but I can’t see any reason to bet on a one set shootout and the doubles is all a bit too up in the air for me to get stuck into so it is just the one bet for me on Tuesday.
Wimbledon 2016 Day 8 Tips
Back S.Williams (-5.5 games) to beat A.Pavlyuchenkova for a 4/10 stake at 1.80 with William Hill
Back her here:
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