Wimbledon Betting Preview: Taylor Fritz vs. Jordan Thompson
Will the American's trend of dropping at least one set in all of his matches so far continue?
In one of our first plays for Wimbledon, we took the Over on 3.5 sets in a meeting between Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard and Taylor Fritz. That ended up being a thrilling five-set battle, played over the course of two days because of the All England Club curfew.
Fritz ended up winning that match, and a few rounds later he’s set to face off with Jordan Thompson with a spot in the quarterfinals on the line. Like that match against Mpetshi Perricard, this is one the American should win. However, also like that first-round match, it’s one that could go four or five sets.
It’s no secret that Fritz thrives on grass. The American recently won his fourth Eastbourne title, and he did it after having won another grass title in Stuttgart two weeks earlier. Fritz is now 44-25 on grass in his career—and that 63.8% winning percentage is the best he has on any surface. His serve is just very difficult for opponents to deal with in slicker conditions and his ability to move and go big from the back of the court is also massive, especially considering he has some serious rally tolerance to go with all of that.
All of that might sound like a case for Fritz, right? Well, I’m going somewhere with it. And where I’m going is that Thompson and Fritz have split wins in their two career meetings. The one win for the Australian came at Queen’s Club last year, 6-4, 6-3 victory. Thompson is a good grass-court competitor and while he isn’t built like other big servers on the ATP Tour, does have a pretty lethal serve. He’s also good at coming to the net to follow them up, and he’s more than happy to grind from the baseline.
There’s a reason Thompson is 35-32 on grass in his career, and this is the only surface in which the Australian has a winning record at the ATP level. So, he’s not going to be uncomfortable out there, like most players are when it comes to this surface. And he’s not going to be intimidated either.
When I first saw this matchup, and the lopsided odds, I knew I’d want to try and jump on Thompson in some capacity. A play on the Over 3.5 sets is more or less a play on Thompson to win one. We’re just getting a better price on the Over than we would for Thompson +2.5 sets, which is heavily juiced. And if we lose because Thompson wins in straights, we’ll just tip our caps to the Australian and go to work on the Monday slate.
Pick: Over 3.5 Sets (-143)