Wimbledon Betting / Ben Caudell / 01 July 2009 / Leave a comment

Ben Caudell thinks there's more to Ivo Karlovic than that serve and will be backing him accordingly.

Ivo Karlovic (CRO) v Roger Federer (SWI)
This will most definitely not be the most exciting match to watch from today's quarter-finals and I would not pay to watch it live. There will be plenty of aces, very few rallies with the only excitement coming in the form of a tie-break at the end of each, and most probably, every set.

Karlovic, at 6ft 10, is the tallest man to have ever played on the ATP tour has won four ATP singles titles: three in 2007 and one in 2008. He has also defeated several highly ranked players including Federer, Lleyton Hewitt, Novak Djokovic, and Andy Roddick to name just a few. The biggest surprise of his career was back in 2007 when the lanky Croatian won a tournament in Houston, Texas, beating Mariano Zabaleta in the final 6-4 6-1. The fact that this tournament win was on...wait a minute...clay(!!!) suggests that Karlovic's game isn't just about his ability to hit ace after ace, thus rarely getting broken, and doing the business in the subsequent tie-break. Some would disagree with this and believe that Karlovic, without his serve would be ranked outside of the top 200, but not this columnist.

Karlovic is yet to be broken at this year's Wimbledon and hasn't had a break point against him since his first round match against Lukas Lacko of Slovakia, he has played no less than seven tie break sets so far, three against Fernando Verdasco in the previous round and three against Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the round of 32. His head-to-head against Roger Federer is 1-8 with the only win coming back in 2008 at the Cincinnati Masters.

I believe the pre-match value has to be on Karlovic here and although Roger Federer will no doubt win this match, it is pointless backing him at such a short price. Instead look at the other markets on offer such as Total Games, Handicaps and Total Tie Breaks for value bets.

Selections:

Back Ivo Karlovic @ [9.4] to win match and lay bet off @ [5.0]
Back Three Tie Breaks only @ [4.5] (small bet)
Back Karlovic +3.5 Games @ [2.5]
Back 7-6 Federer Set 01 Correct score @ [3.2]