Wimbledon Betting / Ben Caudell / 02 July 2010 /

Serena has travelled smoothly through these championships and there are few reasons to think that she won't be lifting a fourth Wimbledon trophy on Saturday afternoon, says Ben Caudell

Serena Williams (USA) v Vera Zvonareva (RUS)
Russian battler Vera Zvonareva only just made it through to her first ever Grand Slam final after beating Tsvetana Pironkova in a three set semi-final thriller, but in doing so she ended a wait of 30 'big four' tournaments before reaching the final two. Only three grand Slam finalists have waited longer, Zina Garrison, Francesca Schiavone and Nathalie Tauziat.

Up against her in the final stands one of the all time Wimbledon greats, Serena Williams, a player who is 12-3 in Grand Slam finals, with three victories (2002, 2003, and 2009) and two defeats (2004 and 2008) at SW19 3-2 at Wimbledon.

This year's route to the All England Championship final has been as comfortable as any I can remember for the World No.1. She is yet to lose a set en-route to the final and has played just two seeded players, Maria Sharapova (16) arguably her toughest match (7-6, 6-4) and Na Li (9) (7-5, 6-3).

On paper, her semi-final appearance against Petra Kvitova looked to be a walkover but it proved to be a little trickier than she expected having been broken early in the first set and going down 4-2. It wasn't long before order resumed for Serena and she went on to take the first set tie-break and then the second set 6-2. Serena's serve has been as at its very best during these championships, she fired seven aces against Kvitova, bringing her tournament total to 80 - the most aces a woman has ever hit at a Wimbledon, better than the previous record of 72 she set last year.

Serena leads the head-to-head series 4-1, with four of the five being played on hard courts and one on clay, Zvonareva's only win was on the hard courts of San Diego way back in 2004. The Russian has a history of meltdowns but seems to have combated her fear of losing, at least during these championships when her fighting qualities have been in evidence and she has been able to handle the difficult situations with more maturity than in the past.

Zvonareva is 8-2 on grass and is over the moon just to reach her first ever Grand Slam final and appears to be relaxed about the prospect of facing Serena in the final on Saturday. The match is there for Serena to lose, if the American serves below par and makes a high proportion of un-forced errors we could see Zvonareva take a set. However, this is the Wimbledon Final and Serena has been here on numerous occasions, the best value for me is to back Serena to win 2-0 and by more than 4.5 games.

Selection: Back Serena Williams 2-0 @ [1.63]
Back S Williams -4.5 Games @ [1.8]

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