Williams's Wimbledon to Lose

Tennis & Wimbledon is down to the semi final stage & it looks to us that the winner of the men's section is going to come from the huge Federer v Djokovic match & whoever can prevail from Serena Williams & Victoria Azarenka's game should prove too strong in the women's section. There have been some reasonable odds available over the tournament & looking at head to head records between opponents is key to gaining a betting edge, Roger Federer's straight sets victory over Youzhny was eminently predictable when you saw that they had met each other on 9 occasions with Youzhny picking up just 3 sets in those 9 matches.

(Serena Williams jumping for joy & we will be too if she can beat Victoria Azarenka 2-0)

Serena Williams was looking back to her imperious best in her quarter final victory over defending champion Petra Kvitova, who herself had looked a likely winner before succumbing to Williams' bludgeoning service game. It's difficult to believe that it's now two years since Williams' last Grand Slam victory, here at Wimbledon in 2010, but she's had some serious medical problems & it is probably only just about now that she's feeling really confident to push herself & get the maximum out of her body. Things shouldn't be easy for Serena against this year's Australian Open champion Victoria Azarenka who finds herself in the semifinal for the 2nd year in a row. It's often said that the first big title is the most difficult to achieve in sport but once that hurdle is overcome competitors mentality can change & they can overcome hurdles they previously would have faltered at, Azarenka will hope that is the case but from 8 meetings with Serena she has only been victorious the once, back in 2009. In their only Wimbledon meeting (2010) Serena slammed Azarenka 6-2, 6-3 & other than her one loss to her, she's only dropped one set to Azarenka in the other 7 matches, in their most recent meeting, on clay in the Madrid Open final, Serena won convincingly 6-1, 6-3 & her serve was working similarly well there.

Azarenka has a really solid all round game but we're unconvinced she has enough to be a 'great' & that is what is needed to beat someone like Williams when she's on form, we can't see Azarenka getting too many break points whilst Williams serve is looking so good plus Serena reckons she's been returning much better in practice than in matches & if she brings that this could be another dominant victory. Odds of 6/4 for Serena Williams to win in straight sets looks to be underestimating the 13 times Grand Slam singles winner & she should win the tournament outright too, rather than take the 23/20 on offer though back her to win here 2-0 & then double that money up with another easy victory in the final.

(Novak Djokovic is now the sport's dominant force & he can land another Wimbledon title)

It's been great to see Roger Federer play some outstanding tennis again here at Wimbledon in 2012 but the truth of the matter is that he is now on the way down, admittedly there's no other way that he could go after reaching the giddy height's of true sport greatness. Federer has now only reached one Grand Slam final in his last 9 tournaments after being pretty much unstoppable from 2004 through 2009, Novak Djokovic has picked up the 'unbeatable' mantle though & has won 4 of the last 6 Grand Slam tournaments. Djokovic made the breakthrough at the highest level in the 2008 Australian Open but he took another three years before picking up his next but he won them all apart from the Rafa Nadal benefit that is the French Open in 2011. Novak has carried his tremendous form into 2012 & he picked up his 3rd Australian before reaching his first French Open final & after he lost there many people were fancying Rafa Nadal to follow up here, however now that he's out we think the 'Djoker' only has to hold things together to win here again.

From 2011 onwards Djokovic & Federer have faced off 7 times & Djokovic has been victorious on 6 of those occasions, winning 4 of those in straight sets including last time out at Roland Garros. A straight sets win at odds of 2/1 is a tempting bet for Djokovic but you have to respect Federer as a 6 times champion & with great crowd support he can get one set, odds of 14/5 with SportingBet for Djokovic to win 3-1 make this the bet. Neither Andy Murray nor Jo-Wilfried Tsonga look to us to have the temperament just yet to win a major & both suffered scary moments in their quarter final matches, therefore odds of 8/11 for a Djokovic tournament win look pretty big to us, he will be a much shorter price whoever he aces if he can progress past Federer.

Selections:

Serena Williams to beat Victoria Azarenka 2-0 at 6/4 (Bet365)

Novak Djokovic to beat Roger Federer 3-1 at 14/5 (SportingBet)

Novak Djokovic to win Wimbledon at 8/11 (SkyBet & Ladbrokes)