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Betfair tennis: Wimbledon Day Nine preview

Today should have been men's singles quarter-finals day at Wimbledon. Instead the battle with the backlog continues with only four-times champion Roger Federer knowing his last-eight opponent.

The top seed, who had a fourth-round walkover when Tommy Haas withdrew, will now meet Spain's Juan Carlos Ferrero. However, he will have to wait until tomorrow at the earliest before he gets back on court.

The rest of the field is one round behind Federer. In fact, in two cases they are locked in third-round action with second seed Rafael Nadal still trying to finish a match against Robin Soderling and fourth seed Novak Djokovic nowhere near to finishing his match with Nicolas Kiefer, in two contests dating back to Saturday.

The women's singles is in better shape with three of the four quarter-finals ready to roll and just the fourth-round clash between Venus Williams and Maria Sharapova to be completed, with Svetlana Kuznetsova awaiting the winner.
So on what should have been a rest day for the women in the original schedule, two quarter-finals fill pride of place in the Betfair Four to Follow.

Justine Henin (Belgium, 1) v Serena Williams (USA, 7)
The match many wanted to see as the final is instead the third match on Centre Court. It pits Australian Open winner and two-time Wimbledon champion Serena Williams against double French Open winner and two-time Wimbledon runner-up Justine Henin. Williams leads 5-4 in head-to-head clashes but a lot will hinge on how much that dramatic Monday win over Daniela Hantuchova took out of her, when she overcame crippling cramp in her leg to win in three sets.

Williams won their semi-final encounter at the 2003 Wimbledon when the American went on to win the title. Henin beat Williams in the French quarter-finals and is in prime form, having reached the last eight for the loss of just 15 games.
Punters make Henin favourite to enjoy success and she is trading at 1.32 while a Williams' victory is available to back at 4.

Marion Bartoli (France, 18) v Michaella Krajicek (Neths, 31)
Marion Bartoli caused one of the two big shocks yesterday when she defeated third seed Jelena Jankovic, on an afternoon when defending champion Amelie Mauresmo also went crashing.

The French 22-year-old is now out to maintain her mini-run of reaching the semi-finals or better in four of her last five tournaments. In the quarter-finals the 18th seed faces Michaella Krajicek on Court 2. The 31st seed from Holland is in the last eight of a Slam for the first time and is looking to build on her third-round victory over seventh seed Anna Chakvetadze and her fourth-round win over American Laura Granville, who had knocked out former champion Martina Hingis.

Bartoli and Krajicek have met once before with the Frenchwoman winning in straight sets in Canberra in 2005.
Bartoli is trading at 1.66 to book a semi-final place against the winner of the Henin-Williams clash with Krajicek available at 2.5.

Meanwhile, in the men's singles, there are still those two third-round matches to finish.

Robin Soderling (Sweden, 28) v Rafael Nadal (Spain, 2)
Rafael Nadal must be cursing missing that match point in the third set tie-break as today he and Soderling resume their battle on Court 1 at midday with their match locked at 4-4 in the deciding set.

Soderling came back from 2-0 down in the final set when they resumed yesterday and is now trading at 2.76 with Betfair to edge through while Nadal is favourite at 1.56 to progress and set up a showdown with Mikhail Youzhny in the fourth round.

Nicolas Kiefer (Germany) v Novak Djokovic (Serbia, 4)
This contest is locked at one set apiece after two tiebreakers but Djokovic is trading at 1.4 with Betfair to get the job finished today and book a fourth-round clash with former champion Lleyton Hewitt. Kiefer is available to back at 3.45 to go through.