Wimbledon Betting / Jack Houghton / 17 June 2011 /

When it comes to wildcards in the first round at Wimbledon, ignore the Brits and focus on the foreigners, says Jack Houghton.

The Wimbledon wildcard committee must have been pleased with themselves when British number two James Ward progressed to the semi-finals of Queen's. After all, the wildcard was issued before Ward managed to beat Wawrinka in the second-round, a match most observers expected him to lose.

This would have been particularly pleasing against the backdrop of abuse the committee has received over the years. Accused of shamelessly pushing forward talentless British players into the first round - like Bogdanovic, who last year repaid the selector's faith with his eighth consecutive first-round defeat from eight wildcards - it must be nice to have a wildcard the media might champion.

The abuse is, of course, slightly unfair. It's usual for the tennis federation of the host Grand Slam nation to award its wildcards to home-grown players. Aside from reciprocal places given to Australians and Americans, French men received all six wildcards at this year's French Open. A similar story emerges from the Australian and US Opens each year.

To the objective observer, this cronyism, whilst not unique to Wimbledon, smacks of unfairness. After all, shouldn't the wildcard system exist to recognise and reward potential, rather than the coat of arms on your passport?

Perhaps, but who says the two approaches are mutually exclusive? By predominantly picking British players, maybe the committee are also picking those most able to progress in the tournament?

The punters on Betfair don't agree. There are seven wildcards in the main draw this year - Ward, Cox, Evans, Clement, Falla, Muller and Sela - and all of them are available to back at the maximum odds of [1000.0].

History is kinder to the committee though. Going back to 2000, Wimbledon have given out 66 wildcards in the men's singles. 23 of those players have outperformed their ranking by progressing further than the first round. 35 per cent - that's not a bad strike-rate, is it?

And let's not forget the crowning glory of the wildcard, Goran Ivanišević, who went on to win the thing in 2001. Or, for that matter, Philippoussis and Ferrero, who have both used wildcards in the past to progress deep into the tournament.

None of those players were British, of course. And this is where the problem arises. Looking at how British wildcards have fared since 2000, the percentage progressing beyond the first round drops dramatically - with none managing to do so in the last four years. Naturally, if you look at the flipside of this, it means that non-British wildcards do remarkably well.

On this basis then, I'll be supporting Clement, Falla, Muller and Sela (who is admittedly a prohibitively short price)in all of their first round matches. Although the match betting markets are currently fairly illiquid, it's likely all will be available at decent prices to progress, and yet all are more than capable of causing an upset.

Take Falla, who plays 11th-seed Jurgen Melzer in the first round. Melzer had a disastrous second-half to his clay-court season - in contrast to Falla's march through to the fourth-round at Roland Garros - and I expect a much closer contest than the early betting suggests.

Recommendations
BACK Falla in first round against Melzer @ [3.75]
BACK Clement in first round against TBD
BACK Muller in first round against Haas @ [1.84]

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