Eoghan O'Dea: Wimbledon

I’ve been in Las Vegas for the last 7 years while Wimbledon is on so with the time zones it’s hard to get to watch much of it but I do still find the time to do a lot of punting on it.

Going in this year Novak Djokovic is the favorite followed very closely by Rafael Nadal. A lot of people have been backing Nadal even with his early exit in Halle straight after Roland Garos. The way he played such an aggressive game in the French he could easily tear up at Wimbledon too but I’m not so sure. It’s quite a different surface here even though it has slowed down a lot over the years. Rafa is in the bottom half of the draw with a lot of dangerous players. He’s scheduled to play Murray again in the semis. They have played the last two years in the semis and once before in the quarters and its 3 nil Rafa.

Murray’s draw is the toughest of anybody’s. He runs into massive servers the whole way through starting with Karlovic in the second round, Dimitrov or Kevin Anderson in the third, the upcoming Canadian sensation Miles Raonic in the fourth and then probably Del Potro in the quarters if he gets that far. His back is still causing him big problems. He went down 1st round in Queens where he was defending champion and then lost both his exhibition matches last week and was playing some awful tennis supposedly. His injury will nearly hurt him more mentally too. I think he’s one to be laying.

Nadal looks to run into Tommy Haas in the 3rd round which could be an interesting one and possibly quite a sweat for Rafa as Haas won Halle two weeks ago and took down the great Roger Federer in the final. Haas played some of the best tennis of his life in that tournament and he’s at the age of 34 which is quite impressive (a bit too old to start being a contender for a grand slam title though).

I’ve backed Tsonga at 40-1. He’s in that bottom half of the draw and will probably eventually bump into Rafa in the quarters. I really like the way he’s been playing throughout this year and he loves the grass. Another one that could be worth a punt is Miles Raonic who is scheduled to play Murray in the fourth round. He’s got a tough draw though and I’ll probably wait and see how Murray is coping early on. Federer has been playing very well for most of the year but did look a level or two below Djokovic and Nadal on the clay. I think he will play well here and does have an easy draw to his semis. He’s 5-1 best price which doesn’t seem to be too shabby either. I don’t bet women’s tennis very often but I know a few people that love Sharapova and her price of 3/1.

Some match bets I like for day 1 and day 2 are as follows:

James Ward at 2/5 vs Andujar- James plays very well on grass and has played some good matches the last few weeks. He’s got a great chance to win his first ever match in Wimbledon, his home tournament. Andujar ranked 36 in the world has never won a match on a grass court in his life. The Spanish clay courter will have to hope James tightens up a lot today.

Paul Henri Mathieu at 2/1 vs Gilles Simon – The come-back kid Mathieu really showed great class in Roland Garros a few weeks back and is playing great tennis after a long injury lay off. Simon wasn’t great in Queens after been dumped out in the first round. He has only one just a set in four previous meetings versus his fellow country man.

Tursunov also at 2/1 vs Florian Mayer – Tursonov is always very dangerous on the grass courts. The Russian veteran lost in the final of the grass court challenger in Nottingham 3 weeks back and did play some poor matches since, but this price is just too big for me.

Losing match bets are also refunded if your player loses in the 5^th set with Paddy Power.