Wimbledon Betting / Ralph Ellis / 30 June 2010 /

Ralph Ellis tells us how he'd normally be opposing Tsvetana Pironkova after her defeat of Venus Williams but why the fact that Vera Zvonareva is on the opposite side of the net has caused him to re-think...

For a few years I've had a theory that whenever one of the smaller Scottish teams beats Celtic or Rangers, you should lay them in the next match. The idea is that they've put so much effort into one win that they've got nothing left for the following and far less glamorous contest. And by and large it's worked.

So the immediate thought after Bulgarian Tsvetana Pironkova had blown away Venus Williams yesterday was that she didn't have a prayer when it came to the semi-final. And clearly Betfair's punters take the same view, making Russian Vera Zvonareva as short as [1.47] to reach her first Grand Slam final.

But this is actually a bit different, because, to be honest, the 22-year-old Pironkova, whose preparation for this fortnight included a defeat at Eastbourne to British teenager Heather Watson, didn't actually have to extend herself at all. Venus was five minutes late for her fourth round match after waiting for a security escort to court two that never arrived - but yesterday she never turned up at all.

And that's actually left her breezing into the last four tomorrow with nothing at all to lose, where she will be meeting a girl whose temperament is notoriously fragile. It's only a few months since Zvonareva suffered a complete meltdown on court at the US Open, throwing away six match points against Flavia Pennetta - and at one point sitting on the court smacking her heavily bandaged knees like Basil Fawlty confronting the car that broke down.

The 25-year-old Russian, once number five in the world, has only just clawed her way back into the top 20 and still doesn't have the effect of some bad injuries out of her head. "When you go through that, it sort of puts a lot of doubts in your head," she admitted yesterday.

She's taken to burying her head under a towel at each change of ends to blot out the world and the danger of negative thoughts, but the nearer she goes to a trophy the harder it will be to handle that pressure and it's why I think Pironkova at [3.05] is great value - and it's certainly worthwhile to lay the Russian for a 2-0 win at [2.24] too.
One thing the downfall of one Williams sister does guarantee is that the other is going to collect the title Serena at [1.26] might not be generous odds but it's pretty much guaranteed to pay out. And to be honest I can't see her dropping a set either tomorrow or on Saturday

Five things you might not know about Vera Zvonareva

Born September 1984 in Moscow, dad Igor played Bandy, a Russian version of ice hockey, for Dynamo Moscow

Igor walked out when she was little to make a new life in America. Mum Natalya, who played field hockey and was part of Russia's bronze medal winning team in the 1980 Olympics, introduced Vera to tennis at the age of six

She's fiercely independent. Natalya says that started when the little Vera was only a year old but refused to let anybody else tie her shoelaces

The family were burgled when Vera was 14 and all the money intended to pay for her overseas tournaments was stolen. Her coach organised a whip-round from friends with the promise it could be repaid from winnings

She gained a degree in sports science during 2007 when she had to take the best part of the year off because of a wrist injury

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