WIMBLEDON : ( sent to subscribers SAT 30/06)
JIE ZHENG- SERENA WILLIAMS
VARVARA LEPCHENKO- PETRA KVITOVA
SAM QUERREY-MARIN CILIC
Three matches to discuss fairly briefly.
The
Chinese player can play a little on grass and made the semis here in
2008, where she lost to Serena 6-2 7-6. That day Williams served
incredible well, 14 aces , 87% of points won on first
serve and yet still Zheng found a way to get competitive in the second
set and almost took it into a third.
Serena
has not played anyone of note so far, but has lost an average of 5.5
games, despite hardly losing a point on serve against Melinda Czink and
it is unlikely even she can reach those serving heights again today,
especially with the wind getting up. Zheng is battle hardened with this
her 11th match on the surface in the last three weeks. I definitely think she can take six games and like her getting a 6.5 game handicap start.
Sometimes Williams can get distracted and dispite winning easily, she
has looked a little "down" at times during the early rounds, anyway,
this one to be closer than expected for me.
I expect the opposite in other Women's singles and for Kvitova to win the battle of the two lefties with a degree of
ease.
The pair have met twice already and the
defending champion won 1& 2 in Miami and 2&1 at Roland Garros, a
surface which doesn't play to her strengths. Now
that she is on her beloved grass, it is very hard to see beyond
another very easy win, her smooth as silk swing produces explosive
power and she take players to areas of the court they didn't know
existed with her acute angles. I was very impressed with her against
Baltacha, not just that her awesome serve was already close to full
throttle, but she showed a ruthless streak, that we expect from
Sharapova , but have all too rarely seen from Kvitova before. She was
fighting for every single point, as though it was match point and I
cannot see here losing more than five games today, so -6.5 games Kvitova would be my pick.
Querrey and Cilic looks like being a titanic struggle, between two giants who both bomb the ball down.
They
have met twice before, both on grass, here in 2009, which was a 55 game
five set battle won by Cilic and he also won at Queens just a couple of
weeks ago, in a match which also went the distance. It is hard not to
see this being similarly close and another five sets would certainly not
surprise.
I
think the US player has a chance and he looks on the big side at
current quotes, he had 28 break points across the two matches, Cilic
just 12. He was pretty much the dominant player in the last meeting,
especially in the first and second set, which he lost the first after
failing to convert any of a host of break points and also getting
troubled by a
blister on his thumb.
Querrey
is very focused to do well here, he missed last year through surgery
and has had huge problems getting his ranking back up , he was
previously top 20 and only early this year got back into the top 100, he
can go top 50 with a win today and that is massive for him, he has been
described previously as being as aggressive as a "man walking a dog"
and has tried to find a more ruthless side to his game recently. He beat
Milos Raonic in the last round taking two of the three tie breaks and
Raonic has arguably, the biggest serve on tour, certainly the most
aces. Querrey said afterwards, "Lately, I feel like I have been a
little more vocal, little more showing that I just want it because it's
been a year. This is definitely my biggest win in a long time. It was a
big moment, a big court, and it feels great." He has pledged to be very aggressive today and to go after every point.
I
like 1.25 units Querrey to win @ 3.15 + on the exchanges, there is
bigger available for lowish liquidity and I am pretty sure he will trade
shorter at some stage. How about a small "saver" 0.5 units on Cilic to
win 3-2 in sets @ circa 6.0.
Good Luck.
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