Wimbledon 2018 Betting Tips and Preview, Men’s and Women’s Singles Winners and Losers
The All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club hosts The Championships, Wimbledon every single year. It is the only one of tennis’s majors that is played on grass courts, which is not only exciting to watch but also a great-leveller. Playing on grass is an entirely different discipline to playing on clay or hard courts, if for no other reason than the court degrades towards the end of the fortnight of the competition in a manner that it doesn’t do on harder surfaces. Things like the manner in which the ball bounces also alters, requiring players that have spent the past few months playing in warmer climates to also shift their mindset.
The tennis calendar gets underway in January with the Australian Open, played in Melbourne in temperatures of mid to late twenties. In May things shift to France and the French Open at Roland-Garros. Given that the tournament plays out on a clay court, it’s little wonder that players like to head to some lesser-known venues to get their practice in on grass before Wimbledon gets underway. Both men and women can head to The Open Nottingham or the International Eastbourne, whilst the most prestigious pre-Wimbledon event for men is the Fever Tree Championship at The Queen’s Club. For women, meanwhile, The Classic Birmingham plays out at the Edgbaston Priory Club. Can they tell you anything about the winners at The All England Club?
Who Will Win Wimbledon 2018 Men’s Singles
How much stock you put into Queens will depend entirely on what information you’re looking for from it. Marin Čilić won the tournament in 2016 but lost to Roger Federer in the quarter-finals of Wimbledon that year. He finished as runner-up last year and then lost in the 2017 Wimbledon final to…Roger Federer. He won Queens again this year, coming from Match Point down in the second set to beat Novak Djokovic 5-7, 7-6 (7-4), 6-3. As you might have noticed, Queens is played over three sets rather than the five of Wimbledon, meaning you might want to have a look at the record of players in long set games as five sets requires a degree of stamina.
If you’re not overly sure about letting Queens inform your decision, then what do the previous two Majors of the year tell you about what might happen at Wimbledon? The finalists were two names that have already cropped up more than once: Roger Federer and Marin Čilić. Any thoughts that the Swiss player’s career was in its twilights years will likely have been put to bed by his three sets to two win over the Croat, meaning that he’s now won the competition a record-equalling six times. He’s also the record holder at Wimbledon, having picked up his eighth title last year.
You’d be forgiven for wondering whether it’s the mid-2000s when you look at the player that sits ahead of him in the ATP rankings, Rafael Nadal. The two players have produced some classics over the years and wise punters might do well to predict them to do so again this time around. Nadal is in fine form after having put his injuries woes behind him and he’ll be feeling as though he can get back into the groove in South East London when he returns to the courts next week. Though he’ll have gained a huge amount of confidence when he won the French Open, he hasn’t yet played in a grass tournament heading into Wimbledon, so might that lack of preparation cost him?
The Serbian lost in the quarter-finals of the French Open to Marco Cecchinato, but he bounced back in some senses by reaching the final of Queens earlier in the month. In the wake of his defeat at Roland-Garros he intimated that he might not even play on the grass this season, but he reached the final of the Fever Tree Championship without losing a set. That he then lost despite having Match Point might point towards a lack of focus from the three-time Wimbledon winner. It certainly suggests that he’s lost the killer touch that saw him pick up eleven Majors in eight years. He’s been off the boil and struggling with injury for the past two years, though, so he’s not one you’ll want to go too big on.
Finalists: Marin Čilić / Roger Federer
Winner: Marin Čilić (6/1)
odds correct as of 27/06/2018
Men’s Singles Outsiders
As mentioned before, grass can be the great leveller. There’s a feeling that this could be Marin Čilić’s year and that he’s finally going to get the better of Roger Federer in a Major final, using the mental strength he gained in coming back from Match Point against Djokovic to get him there. All punters like to have a nibble at a player with longer odds, though, so you might want to have a look at Andy Murray. There’s some debate around whether the former champion and the first British male to win the tournament since Fred Perry will even be at Wimbledon and if he is he’ll have to depend on a Wild Card, given that he’s unseeded. He’s been rocked by injury in recent times, but he’ll be a favourite of the home crowd and at 16/1 could be worth a look.
Roger Federer has only lost three times so far this year, with the name of one of the mean that got the better of him being Juan Martin del Potro. The Argentine has only won one Major in his career in the form of the 2009 US Open, but that’s also the only time that he’s reached one of the Major finals. He got to the semi-final of the French Open and might feel that he’s in a good vein of form. Given the question marks over the form and fitness of Murray, Djokovic and even Nadal, del Poitro might just think that’s he’s got the chance of causing an upset. At 16/1, more than a few bettors might agree with him.
Who Will Win The Wimbledon 2018 Women’s Singles?
Whilst it isn’t easy to identify the likely winner of the Men’s side of the tournament, it’s at least possible to have a read of the tea leaves and make some sensible predictions. When it comes to the Ladies’ event, however, it feels as though it’s pretty much an open field. The fact that the Men’s game involves playing matches that are the best of five sets means that the better players have more room for recovery. The Women’s game asks them to battle it out in best of three sets, however, lending it to more shocks and surprises. We all remember Martina Hingis taking the world by storm when she won Wimbledon as a sixteen-year-old in 1997, for example.
This year the tournament seems more wide-open than ever before, if for no other reason than usual Wimbledon favourite Serena Williams missed a huge amount of tennis when she became pregnant with, and subsequently gave birth to, her daughter Alexis Olympia. She’s still in the running as far as the bookies are concerned, but she’s only the twenty-fifth seed according to the Wimbledon rankings. She’s also said recently that she would consider giving up tennis if she had a second child, meaning that her head is arguably not entirely on the job as the tournament is about to get underway. That said, she’s a player that consistently proves her doubters wrong and will feel as though she has plenty to improve this time out.
If you’re a stats fan then you might be interested to know that Petra Kvitova is the player whose data on grass over the past two years sees her come out on top. She’s also the bookies favourite, meaning that you’d be hard pushed to ignore her. She didn’t have an awful lot to beat at the Birmingham Classic, but she still lifted the trophy by dispatching with Magdaléna Rybáriková with relative ease. The Slovakian actually won the first set, but that was enough to jolt Kvitova into action and she won the second set 6-1 and the third 6-2. She’s also got previous at Wimbledon, having beaten Maria Sharapova in the final in 2011 and then picking up her second title by beating Eugene Bouchard three years later. She’s had a distinct lack of success in Majors since then, though, and hasn’t progressed past the Third Round of Wimbledon since winning it.
Given the openness of the field, you’d be daft not to put a bet on the defending champion, Garbiñe Muguruza. The Spaniard reached the Wimbledon final two years ago, eventually losing out to Serena Williams, then defeated Serena’s sister Venus to lift the trophy in 2017. She reached the semi-finals of the French Open after crashing out of the Australian Open in the Second Round, so maybe she’s warming up to the year as it progresses. If that was the case, though, then you might have expected her to do better at the Birmingham Classic than the Second Round defeat to Barbora Strýcová that she actually managed. You’d be silly to think of the defending champion as an outsider, but other people have better for than her right now and Serena’s muscle memory has to be worth bearing in mind.
Finalists: Serena Williams / Petra Kvitová
Winner: Petra Kvitová (4/1)
Women’s Singles Outsiders
As mentioned a moment ago, the Women’s game is one that lends itself to surprised a tad more than the men’s. For that reason, there are a few women in much the same bracket that you might want to consider having a long-odds bet on. Referring to them as being ‘in the same bracket’ isn’t paying the theory lip service, either. All of Caroline Wozniacki, Johanna Konta and Ashleigh Barty are rated as 25/1 shots at the time of writing. Konta’s market in particular will likely have dropped because of her poor performance on clay so far this year, but she loves playing on grass and will have the home crowd rooting for her throughout. Wozniacki, meanwhile, is the World number two and picked up her first Major when she won the Australian Open in January.
If you’re looking for an outsider with pedigree in the tournament then Maria Sharapova shouldn’t be dismissed too quickly. The Russian has won four Majors so far in her career, with the 2004 Wimbledon win being followed up by two semi-final performances in 2005 and 2006. She made the same stage in 2015 but didn’t appear in the competition in 2016 or last year. That was in part because of her suspension from tennis because she failed a drugs test. That means she’s something of a pariah in the sport, but don’t let that fool you; she might not be beloved by her fellow competitors but she’s a force to be reckoned with on her day and at 14/1 is likely worth a shot.
Who Will Win The Wimbledon 2018 Doubles Title?
The Doubles game is rarely given the same attention as its Single counterpart, but that’s perfect from a betting point of view. It often means that you can find some long odds on the eventual winners. The problem isn’t in finding decent odds but rather in finding information that can help to point you in the right direction of the likely winners.
Using the previous year’s winners as a starting point isn’t ideal, for example. In 2016 Pierre-Hugues Herbert and Nicolas Mahut won the Men’s Doubles but then crashed out in Round Two last year. Łukasz Kubot and Marcelo Melo were the eventual winners, defeating then Doubles world number one Henri Kontinen and his partner John Peers in the semi-final.
The 2016 winners of the Women’s Doubles were Venus and Serena Williams, but they didn’t compete and so Ekaterina Makarova and Elena Vesnina ran our as eventual winners. They absolutely smashed Chan Hao-ching and Monica Niculescu 6-0, 6-0, meaning they’ll be firm favourites if they decided to enter the competition again this time around.
The trouble with Doubles tennis is that the same partners don’t always stick together, meaning that you can never be sure whether the defending champions will have to protect their crown. Even so, when it comes to the Mixed Doubles then Jamie Murray is always a name to look out for, He partnered Martina Hingis in 2017 and won the Wimbledon title for the second time in his career, having done so with Jelena Janković a decade earlier.
