Wimbledon Betting Preview: Ekaterina Alexandrova vs. Belinda Bencic
The Russian rolled through in Bad Homburg two weeks ago. Is another lopsided match incoming?
On Monday, Belinda Bencic and Ekaterina Alexandrova will play for a spot in the Wimbledon quarterfinals. Alexandrova comes into this match as the favorite—and it isn’t hard to figure out why. The Russian hasn’t dropped a set in London thus far, and she also happened to dismantle Bencic, 6-1, 6-2, in Bad Homburg two weeks ago.
However, the recent results appear to have led to a bit of an overreaction in the market. Now, there’s value in backing Bencic, so I’m taking the former world No. 4 to win a set. I’ll also take a smaller stab at Bencic moneyline at +173.
Alexandrova is rolling this grass-court season. The Russian is 8-2 and the losses were highly competitive battles with Elise Mertens and Iga Swiatek. Alexandrova is also a career-best 28-13 on the year, and that winning percentage of 68.3% easily clears her previous best of 64.7%. Her power game from the baseline has always overwhelmed opponents, but she has been a little sharper as both a server and a returner. That has helped Alexandrova take things to another level.
The problem? It's a tough ask to beat the same player twice in a short period of time. That’s especially true when talking about somebody like Bencic, who is 49-23 on grass and has statistically been better than Alexandrova when both are playing their best tennis.
There should be some positive regression coming for Bencic in London, and that’s probably coming with the ball on her racquet. Bencic made 66.0% of her first serves against Alexandrova in Bad Homburg, but she won only 45.2% of her first serve points. That’s nearly impossible to do. Look for Alexandrova to have less success putting the Bencic serve back in play. Also, don’t be surprised if Bencic does way more damage with plus-one opportunities.
It just feels like Bencic can only go up from where we saw these two last time, and Alexandrova probably won’t reach that same level. On top of that, this is a match in which betting splits make it hard not to like Bencic. While nearly 75% of bettors have action on Alexandrova, she has gone from a -300 favorite to a -215 favorite. That suggests there’s sharp action on Bencic, meaning some of the best bettors in the world are feeling the Swiss.
Pick: Bencic +1.5 Sets (-152)