The Grand Slams in tennis are the pinnacle of every players career. They are the ones that every tennis fan marks excitedly into their calendars as soon as the dates are announced and the rush for tickets for each slam is always overwhelming. However, there is one that seems to stand above the others.
Perhaps it is because of the tradition, maybe it's because of its famous queues, or the special matches it has thrown up across the years - from Borg and McEnroe to Federer and Rafa Nadal to Mauresmo and Henin, Wimbledon has something which sets it apart. The Australian Open has its incredible size, the French Open has the glamour and the feel of a Parisian fashion show and the US Open has a bombastic and bold feeling that only the United States can provide.
There's just something though, about the United Kingdom’s Grand Slam, which makes it stand apart in many people’s minds. This makes many people look forward to it more than the others, it makes it the centre of the Tennis universe and it means that we often look at it as the one all of the players are working towards.
The recent Australian Open was a fantastic tennis tournament with two very popular winners and some standout matches. Chung vs Djokovic was exceptional, Simona Halep’s battle with Angelique Kerber was edge of the seat stuff and Caroline Garcia’s early win against Markéta Vondroušová was a rollercoaster that delighted fans at Melbourne park. Alongside providing us with some superb matches, the tournament also gave us some pointers and ideas about what might happen at Wimbledon.
Tennis can be a great sport to bet on, with so many matches and so many different things to bet on, from next break of serve, to match score, all the way to how many sets the tournament winner will drop.
However as the Australian Open showed, one of the biggest issues is how unpredictable it is, how hard it is to work out what to bet on, because tennis can throw up shocks, like Johanna Konta being dumped out in the second round. That is why taking pointers and looking at previous tournaments, as well as resources like the 2018 Wimbledon betting guide by Freebets.co.uk, are so important if you are going to bet on tennis. Here then are two lessons we learnt at the Australian Open that can help us understand what might happen at this years Wimbledon.
Federer is the clear favourite for Wimbledon
In Australia, Novak Djokovic looked nowhere near back to his best, Nadal looked injury prone and unable to keep his body together on the tougher surfaces and Andy Murray was not even at the tournament allowing Federer to canter to another Grand Slam title. There has long been a number of players touted as successors to the next generation but they either fell very short like Alexander Zverev and Nick Kyrgios or they looked out of their depth in the latter parts of the tournament like Hyeon Chung and Kyle Edmund.
This trend is, unfortunately for Federer’s detractors, likely to continue. The Swiss looks almost better than he ever has and he loves the grass of Wimbledon. He is red hot favourite to take another crown at his favourite event and extend his lead over Nadal in terms of total slams won.
The Women’s draw may turn up another first time winner in SW19
Unlike in the men’s tournaments, women’s Grand Slams have taken a new air of unpredictability with many players picking up their first titles. We saw Wozniacki do it this year down under, Jelena Ostapenko did it last year at the French and Simona Halep has come so close she can almost taste it.
Serena Williams has scaled the heights of the game, she has nothing left to prove and a young daughter who she, unsurprisingly, wants to devote time to. This will likely leave Wimbledon wide open and it might make sense to bet on a player yet to take a slam title with Halep, Karolina Pliskova and Elina Svitolina all possible candidates for the title. Though with the monkey finally of her back and a grand slam in her collection, the world number one Caroline Wozniacki might not be the worst of bets either.