ATP Wimbledon Semi-Final Tips: Norrie has the toughest of tasks

Note: this article was published on Thursday before Rafa Nadal's withdrawl

Norrie a huge underdog to make the final

For the first time since Andy Murray in 2016, there's a British semi-finalist in the men's singles at Wimbledon, and after his dramatic five-set win over David Goffin on Tuesday, Cameron Norrie has earned the right to be in the final four.

On Friday he faces the tournament favourite, Novak Djokovic, who also required five sets to get past Jannik Sinner in his quarter-final after being two sets down to the Italian, with both his and Norrie's victory taking a similar amount of time.

Both players will be grateful for the extra rest day following their lengthy matches on Tuesday.

Unfortunately for British fans hoping that Norrie will make it through to the final, Djokovic is heavy odds-on to get the better of him.

The Exchange price is currently 1.091/11 in favour of the Serb, and he does have a big data-driven advantage over Norrie (11.521/2) - he's won around 6% more service points and 4% more return points on grass over the last two years, and that's a similar dynamic to their performances in this year's tournament as well.

Add to that the clear experience edge which Djokovic will have, with 42 Grand Slam semi-finals already to his name, and it's not that difficult to see why the market has taken this stance.

It's very hard to make a case for the Brit even at gigantic odds. Indeed, my fellow tennis tipster on this site, Sean Calvert, argues the case for a straight sets win for the Serbian star at odds-on here.

Nadal with injury and fitness doubts ahead of Kyrgios clash

The second semi-final should be much more competitive, and it's a match which I'm sure many tennis fans are looking forward to greatly - Nick Kyrgios versus Rafa Nadal.

Kyrgios actually defeated Nadal in their first career meeting, here in 2014, although Nadal has subsequently won six of their other eight meetings.

However, Nadal's epic win over Taylor Fritz, where the Spaniard struggled with injury and was on court for almost four and a half hours, has to be considered ahead of this match.

That's part of the reason why Kyrgios has been chalked up as the 1.75/7 market favourite at the time of writing, ahead of Nadal at 2.47/5.

Kyrgios serve outstanding so far at SW19

In the tournament so far, the Australian has won around 4.5% more service points - his serve has been top drawer throughout, holding 94% of the time and serving more than one ace per game on average - but Nadal has a similar edge on return, as might have been expected given the long-term dynamics of each player.

Where Kyrgios has excelled at Wimbledon 2022 is saving break points on serve. He's actually running at 14% above expectation for this metric based on service points won expectation, and that's very unsustainable. However, it's unsustainable in the long-term and could he do this again versus Nadal - it's very possible, given how motivated he seems to be right now.

Apart from on return versus Stefanos Tsitsipas earlier in the tournament, he's been clutch when it matters.

Although the data makes it difficult to split the duo, given those injury and possible fatigue issues for Nadal, it does make sense to make Kyrgios favourite here.

He's often touted as a man for the big occasion, and that will need to be the case again versus Nadal - this is Kyrgios' first Grand Slam semi-final which at the age of 27, shows how inconsistent he's been, given the amount of talent he has. Whatever happens, this should be an epic.