Wimbledon Betting – Winner likely to come from four favorites
The most prestigious tennis tournament in the world, Wimbledon, is set to begin June 23 over in England as players will now be adjusting to grass courts after playing on the clay at the recent French Open. Top-ranked Rafael Nadal of Spain comes to town with the hot racket after taking the French Open for a ninth time, but he’ll find some stiff competition in Britain from the likes of reigning champion Andy Murray of Scotland, number two-ranked Novak Djokovic of Serbia, and Roger Federer of Switzerland.
These four players are definitely the favorites to take the event and the winner will likely be one of this quartet. Federer is gunning for his eighth Wimbledon crown, but he hasn’t made a the final of a Grand Slam event over the past two years. But nobody other than Federer, Murray, Djokovic, and Nadal has captured Wimbledon since 2002 when Lleyton Hewitt managed to pull it off.
Djokovic goes into the event as the top seed after dropping the French Open to Nadal. He’s never won Wimbledon as he’s been beaten by Nadal both times he made it to the final. Sooner or later he’s going to achieve the feat and this could very well be the year. Djokovic has slipped slightly from his form of 2011 and 2012, but he’s won the most major events this year when it comes to male tennis stars including the Rome Master, the BNP Paribas Open, and the Sony Open.
Still, while his form may be a little off, the Serb has reached the semi-final stage 15 times in the past 16 Grand Slams events. Nadal has had a hard time of it over at Wimbledon for the past two years. He was knocked out of the tournament by Lukas Rosol in the second round in 2012 and by Steve Darcis in the first round last summer. Neither Rosol or Darcis were ranked in the top 100 at the time. He also lost in the second round to Dustin Brown in Halle after nailing down the French Open with wins over Djokovic, Murray, and David Ferrer.
As for Murray, he made the headlines last year for becoming the first British male to take Wimbledon since back in 1936 when Fred Perry won it. He underwent back surgery last fall after the victory and also parted ways with his former coach Ivan Lendl. In fact, he hasn’t made it to a tournament final over the past 12 months. He was recently beaten in Queens by Radek Stepanek after performing reasonably well in France and making it to the semi-finals before losing to Nadal in straight sets.
Murray will be playing at Wimbledon with a new coach in Amelie Mauresmo of France, who is a former women’s Grand Slam winner and top-ranked player. Mauresmo has made history by becoming the first female to coach a top-ranked male tennis star. Murray will hope to stay away from Nadal at Wimbledon since he’s lost to him all three times they’ve met on grass.
Federer loves playing at Wimbledon and that’s obvious since he’s won it seven times. He performs well on the grass, but he’s been struggling for quite some time now. If you’re looking for outsiders who may have a shot we can start with Stanislas Wawrinka of Switzerland, who won the last Australian Open. However, in his last six outings since then he’s only reached the quarterfinals once and was sent packing in the first round of the French open by Guillermo García-Lopez. His excellent serve could be a factor on the grass at Wimbledon though.
Another long shot is Thomas Berdych, who was beating in the semi finals by Wawrinka in Australia. But since then he reached the semi finals in Miami, the final in Dubai, and captured his first tournament of 2014 in February in Rotterdam. In addition, we have Jo-Wilfried Tsonga of France, who always raises his game on the grass. Tsonga has made it to the semi finals at Wimbledon twice in the past three tournaments. David Ferrer, and Kei Nishikori also have an outside shot at pulling off an upset.