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Value available in Murray breaking Davydenko serve at Wimbledon

| 26.06.2012

Perhaps unsurprisingly having won his two most recent previous meetings with Nikolay Davydenko, Andy Murray is afforded heavy 1/20 favouritism to beat the Russian at Wimbledon on Tuesday.

Murray has never failed at the first round stage of the famous tournament, with advancement to the third round his worst performance in six efforts at the All England Club.

He faces a tough challenge in former world number three Davydenko, who is 8/1 to triumph, but should have enough to get past his challenger with the support of the home crowd.

However, rather than taking Murray on at such short odds for success, punters may be better advised to back him to break the serve of his opponent at 13/8.

A notorious big server, Davydenko’s best chance against Murray will be to capitalise when serving, but the Scot admits he has dealt well with such styles in the past, despite them posing an obvious challenge.

“It’s always a tough match when you play against big servers,” he told BBC Sport.

“I’ve had a good record against them in the past. It can be tough to break them.

“It can be quite mentally challenging playing against them because you can’t really lose focus on your own serve, even if it’s just for a few points.”

Of course, his record against big-serving players is impressive in its nature not least by its inclusion of a superior head-to-head record over Davydenko, though the players haven’t met since 2009.

Indeed, Murray has been successful in five of his nine outings against the Russian, whose fall from grace in recent years has seen him descend to 47th in the world rankings.

Also, the fact that Davydenko’s playing style lends itself more readily to hard and clay court competition is a detriment to his chances, and as a result he could suffer at Wimbledon.

Murray looks a shoo-in for success, and to win whilst breaking his opponent’s serve at 13/8 would give him great confidence moving forward in the tournament.

All Odds and Markets are correct as of the date of publishing.

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Author

John Klee