Wimbledon Betting / The Betfair Contrarian / 24 June 2010 /

First, Roger Federer came close to opening day elimination, then we witnessed the longest match ever. The only way Wimbledon could get weirder would be if a Brit won the men's singles for the first time since 1936. Here's why The Betfair Contrarian is backing Andy Murray at [10.0]...

Murray gets better every year

The world number four has appeared four times in the men's singles at Wimbledon and on each occasion he has bettered his previous performance. He reached the third round on his 2005 debut, made the last 16 a year later, missed out through injury in 2007, got to the quarter-finals in 2008 and then went all the way to the semis last year. The next step is to make it to the second Sunday, and Murray has won 14 of his 21 career finals.

His season hasn't been bad at all...

Many pundits are writing Murray off because of the belief that he arrives at Wimbledon in poor form, but that isn't entirely true. The Scot's record in the Masters events hasn't been great, however he remains a constant threat at Grand Slams. He's reached the last 16 at eight in succession and this year reached his first Australian Open Final. At Roland Garros, traditionally his weakest major, he bowed out in the fourth round, yet that was his second best ever finish there, and his conqueror Tomas Berdych went on to deliver his finest ever Grand Slam result, and didn't drop a set until the semi-finals.

...and momentum isn't everything

A controversial statement perhaps, but the stats support it. Last year's champion Roger Federer was supposedly a broken man earlier in 2009 when he burst into tears after Australian Open Final defeat to Rafael Nadal, while his final opponent Andy Roddick had his worst ever season in terms of silverware. The message is clear - don't read too much into hard and clay court form once Wimbledon arrives.

Murray was the strongest starter

Murray's lack of form wasn't apparent in the first round anyway, as he breezed past Jan Hajek in straight sets, losing just eight games. He outperformed the rest of the top four seeds, which is a good omen as 12 of the last 13 Wimbledon champions were seeded between one and four. Defending champion, top seed, [2.96] favourite and best player ever Federer has a mountain to climb after going the distance in his opener, as does world number three Novak Djokovic, because not since 1995 has a man claimed the title after dropping a set in his first-round match, while Bjorn Borg in 1978 was the last to do it after losing two. Federer went on to lose another in his second-round clash with Ilija Bozoljac.

He has no reason to fear Nadal

Nadal [3.15] has regained top spot in the world rankings, and dominated the clay Masters events, but he is yet to truly boss the Grand Slams. Yes, he won the French Open again this year - hardly a huge surprise considering he's lost once there in six years. That was his first major final in over a year though, and he didn't carry the form over to Queen's, dropping a set to Denis Istomin before losing to Feliciano Lopez. Murray has won both Grand Slam meetings with the Spaniard since Wimbledon 2008 too, beating him at the US Open later that year and leading by two sets at the Australian Open this year when Nadal retired.

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