DAY two at Wimbledon 2017 sees round one of the men’s singles complete, with plenty of betting opportunities available on Tuesday.
And hopefully day two will go better than day one, which was one of those where the odd point here and there cost me several times over. Philipp Kohlschreiber’s brain wasn’t on one of its better days and after he broke himself from *4-5, 30-0 in set one his brittle confidence deserted him again.
It was a truly dismal performance from the German, who failed to make any returns on second serves on the few break opportunities he had and if that’s all he has left I doubt we’ll be seeing him back here next year.
And to cap it all my idea of Stan Wawrinka being vulnerable against Daniil Medvedev proved correct, but the Swiss failed to even make it to the 39 games mark.
Wawrinka was a point away from levelling set three at 5-5 when *40-15 ahead in game 1, but then collapsed horribly, winning only one more game in the match to foil the overs bet, having had treatment on a knee problem.
There was a bit of rain around on Monday and there may be a shower on Tuesday, but the forecast looks pretty much okay for a full day’s play.
Robin Haase vs Francis Tiafoe
There are a few reasons to take a chance on underdog Tiafoe in this one, with the young American prospect having made an encouraging start to his main level grass career.
Tiafoe should have beaten Richard Gasquet at Eastbourne last week when he led by a set and a break against the Frenchman and a repeat of that sort of form should see him go close at least versus Haase.
The 19-year-old has some big weapons and walloped down 18 aces against Gasquet at an impressive rate of 1.06 per game and he’s not the type to be overawed, as we saw when he went toe-to-toe with Roger Federer in Miami in March.
This will be his eighth match on grass, so he should be used to the conditions and he faces an opponent who’s certainly a shaky favourite on the grass.
Haase’s grass stats over his last 10 matches on the surface are very average indeed, with only 76.1% holds and a measly 14% breaks for a total of 90.1 and that’s worse than Thomaz Bellucci.
The Dutchman’s record at Wimbledon isn’t good either, with a 6-8 total, and three of those six wins came against Pere Riba, Alejandro Falla and a five set struggle over Diego Schwartzman.
Tiafoe is a bit raw, as you’d expect at the stage of his career that he’s at, but he’s worth a wager on at 2.65 against Haase.
Talking of Schwartzman, he’s proven a tough nut to crack for Grigor Dimitrov on hard courts and clay in their two career clashes so far and given the Bulgarian’s weak grass court stats and propensity to zone out during matches the 3-1 to him appeals, as does the +2.5 sets on Schwartzman.
John Isner hasn’t exactly impressed this grass swing so far, with a final set tie break success over the usually grass-averse Dusan Lajovic being his only victory, and Taylor Fritz +3.5 games or +1.5 sets may be an option in that one.
Roger Federer has enjoyed a series of absolute gimmes in round one of Wimbledon of late, with Guido Pella, Albert Ramos, Paulo Lorenzi and Mikhail Kukushkin recent opponents.
This time he may at least face some sort of a challenge early on in the mercurial form of Alexandr Dolgopolov and I’m tempted by the 8-1 on Fed to lose the first set and win.
Federer’s fortune in round one draws could hold though, with Dolgo last seen on crutches after a fall in Rosmalen, but after tearing ligaments the Ukrainian was back on court training a week ago.
On his best form Dolgo could well make a match of this, but he’s a hard man to predict with any degree of accuracy, even when he’s fit.
Among those who need to be classed as potentially injured/unfit include Ernesto Escobedo (foot), Ernests Gulbis (calf), Martin Klizan (calf), Marcos Baghdatis (heat exhaustion in Antalya), Steve Darcis (back) and Jack Sock (knee).
Juan Martin Del Potro would have to go down as ‘questionable’ as well, given his non-participation in the grass swing so far due to a groin problem, but if is fit his clash with Thanasi Kokkinakis has one of the highest combined tie breaks per set ratios of any of Tuesday’s matches.
The highest, unsurprisingly, is Isner vs Fritz, followed by Jeremy Chardy vs Tomas Berdych, Gael Monfilsvs Daniel Brands, Milos Raonic vs Jan-Lennard Struff, Mischa Zverev vs Bernard Tomic, and Adrian Mannarino vs Feli Lopez.
As ever in these opening days there are over 300 markets to consider and whittle down to a few bets and my shortlist for value other than Tiafoe on Tuesday includes Tomic, Sebastian Ofner, Mikhail Youzhny, Stefanos Tsitsipas, Vasek Pospisil, Nicolas Jarry, Brands, Ricardas Berankis and Brydan Klein.
A pretty long shortlist, admittedly, and I’ll overlook Ofner and Youzhny, as the former is very much unproven at this level and I’m not sure what Youzhny has left in his legs these days.
The Russian has a great head-to-head against Nicolas Mahut, with the Frenchman holding a poor record at Wimbledon and beaten here as a decent favourite five times in his career.
If Youzhny had shown some fitness lately he could have been a bet, while Klein is in the list purely because Yuichi Sugita may well have a let down after winning his maiden tour level title in extreme heat in Antalya last week.
Jarry is there due to the awful level often exhibited these days by opponent Gilles Simon and the Chilean might be up to testing the fading Frenchman now that he’s happy playing on grass.
Tsitsipas has a shot against Dusan Lajovic, whose grass record prior to this past week was dire, but he beat Chardy and almost beat Isner, so perhaps the Serb is finally happy on it, but he usually struggles on quicker surfaces.
Monfils is another who’s always looked most uncomfortable on grass up until recently when he played rather well at Eastbourne, but he has lost three times to the big-serving Brands and 1.1 is very short on Lamonf.
Berankis has to have a shot based on Darcis having already pulled out of Bastad having quit the doubles last week in Antalya, but it’s a pure fitness bet and therefore not worth anything other than small stakes.
Overall, it’s a day where there are lots of possible options, but few real standout bets, so for me I’ll back Tiafoe as my main bet and have a small double on Tomic to beat Zverev and over 39.5 games in Jordan Thompson’s clash with Albert Ramos.
Zverev has a poor record at Wimbledon of three wins (two by way of retirement) in his seven matches, but he hasn’t played the main draw here for six years, and more relevant for me is his style of play, which doesn’t fare well at Wimbledon these days.
The likes of Muller, Mahut, Zverev and even Lopez aren’t helped by this slower grass and having lost to Bernie last week in straight sets in quicker conditions the Aussie as slight underdog looks decent.
Thompson and Ramos looks a grind all day long and the Spaniard’s record at Wimbledon is much better than his other grass results, which is another indicator that it’s slower here.
He’s beaten Viktor Troicki, Pospisil, and Istomin here and took a set off Richard Gasquet 12 months ago, so he’s far from useless on the lawns of the All England Club.
Thompson’s shock win over Andy Murray is his only main level win on grass (1-5 overall) and has made him short for this match, but this has five sets written all over it – and probably no tie breaks either.
In December 2020 we sadly 
