Berdych to be made to work against in-form Mahut at Wimbledon
Published:
It may have been a mixed bag for the Brits on Wednesday, but there is no denying Wimbledon is flowing along just nicely and now it’s just up to us to find out those winners at SW19.
Just like Murray and co we are feeling lucky, so we are putting all of our eggs in one basket with this tasty treble paying around 4/1.
Here are our picks for success
Don’t let Berdych’s 5-0 head-to-head record fool you into thinking this will be a walkover for the Czech player.
Nicolas Mahut has won his last nine matches on grass (and 11 of his last 12), and comes into this in flying form.
He is more than capable of giving the world number six something to think about even if he doesn’t have what it takes to pull off an upset.
Of Berdych’s last six Grand Slam matches, five have seen 39 or more matches, so he isn’t one to do things the easy way.
In their two previous meetings, Jelena Jankovic has conceded just 10 games to Evgeniya Rodin, so there is little to suggest that she will struggle to make it a hat-trick of wins against the Russian.
She has won five of her last eight grass court matches without conceding a set, and on the whole those opponents have been of a higher calibre than her second round foe here.
The way Jankovic is playing she looks set to put behind her a poor spell at Wimbledon that has only seen her reach the round of 16 once in the last six years. Expect that barren spell to end this time round.
Jana Cepelova is sure to have her followers following her scalp of world number three Simona Halep in round one, but this looks as far as she will go.
In truth, Halep hasn’t been at her best for a good period of this season, and while it was a solid performance it needs to be taken with a pinch of salt.
Before that Cepelova had won just two of her last seven matches on the Futures tour, and isn’t the most consistent type.
Niculescu meanwhile overcame Monica Puig to add another good victory to her belt after defeating the likes of Agnieszka Radwanska and Vavara Lepchenko in Nottingham and should be able to overcome her 106-ranked opponent with ease.
All Odds and Markets are correct as of the date of publishing.
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