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Roger Federer will continue his quest for an 8th Wimbledon crown by taking on Gilles Muller in the 2nd round at the “All England Lawn Tennis Club Single Handed Championship of the World”.
Luxembourg’s No. 1 Gilles Muller missed the last 6 months of last season due to injury, but he came out surprisingly strong in 2014 and climbed over 250 places in the rankings up to no. 103. Gilles won 4 of his last 7 tournaments, all challengers, but failed to reach a final in his 2 grass court showings prior to Wimbledon. Still, he remains a fine player on grass and can take on anybody on his day – as seen in his brilliant 3 set win over Julien Benneteau in the first round. Muller has a gigantic serve which keeps him in sets and gives him a chance to compete, he also has excellent groundstrokes and net play when he’s in good form – and he is in great shape this season, also looked very sharp against Benneteau (albeit the frenchman was not really at his best).
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Bet with the best odds and highest limits at Pinnacle. |
Federer got off to a good start at SW19, leaving Paolo Lorenzi with just 5 games in a dominating 1st round win. However, Lorenzi is a non-factor on grass and Roger will have a tougher task ahead of him today. The Swiss has been in good form this year and playing good tennis, except for a 3 week drop on clay after the birth of his second pair of twins, and is on the back of a title run at Halle. He looks solid and I fancy him to go all the way and win Wimbledon.
The H2H is 3-0 for Federer, all meetings took place on hard courts and the Swiss did not lose a set. However, the two players did not meet since 2008, when Federer won a tough three setter, 7-6 6-4 7-6 in the US Open quarterfinals. Can’t say much about the matchup except that Federer usually gets the best out of big servers – however, it hasn`t really been the case on grass recently.
Given Muller’s excellent form and his solid tennis in the first round and taking into account that it`s just the second round, I expect the Luxembourger to keep this close. I don`t see Federer losing too much energy trying to fight against Muller’s big serve and he will probably be content to win the sets in tiebreaks. The grass is faster in the first couple of days so that should help Muller’s serve to be even more effective – he allowed just one break point against Benneteau and conceded zero breaks. My tip is Muller to cover the 6 game handicap. You might want to take this bet early, because the line and the odds are already going down. Prediction: Gilles Muller – Roger Federer 6-7 4-6 6-7.
Pick: Muller (+6 game handicap)
Odds: 1.84 @ Pinnacle
Stake: 6
Possible profit: 5.04
Event date: 26 June
