Find Me a 5/1 Wimbledon Winner: Relentless Norrie could punish fatigued Goffin

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Norrie is likely to have more in the tank than Goffin ahead of their quarter final

"Goffin is no stranger to dropping sets 6-0 - he's been bageled 19 times in his main level career..."

The quarter finals of the men's singles at Wimbledon 2022 are set and Sean Calvert returns to try and find a big-priced winner on day nine...

The top half of the men's singles draw are in action on Tuesday at The All England Club and it's already looking rather inevitable that Novak Djokovic will be in the final once again come Sunday.

Unless something unexpected happens, I'm putting Djokovic in the final already, with none of Jannik Sinner, David Goffin or Cam Norrie likely to come particularly close to stopping the Serb.

It looked a nice draw for Djokovic at the start and next up for the former world number one is Sinner, who, I must admit, I didn't expect to be in the second week, based on his weak showings on grass prior to this tournament.

Considering that he said his ambition this fortnight was to win one match, I'm not holding out much hope that Sinner can come close to knocking Djokovic off his perch on Tuesday.

The young Italian is 0-12 versus top-five ranked opponents (at the time of the match) and in sets he's won only three of the 31 he's contested, so on that basis it doesn't look good for Sinner and we can see why Djokovic is 1.141/7 to win.

Sinner is 0-12 versus top-five ranked opponents (at the time of the match) and in sets he's won only three of the 31 he's contested

That said, Sinner has been a lot closer to beating members of the top five lately.

He should have beaten Alexander Zverev in Monte-Carlo and ended up losing in a final set tie break and he also lost that way against Daniil Medvedev in Turin.

Indeed, four of the last five matches he's played against top-five opponents have featured a tie break, so there's hope for a breaker here as well.

Sinner has held serve 93% of the time this tournament so far and while it's certainly the case that Djokovic is a big upgrade in terms of returning skills on anything Sinner's faced so far, the Italian may be able to take this past the 34.5 total games mark.

Goffin could be weary against Norrie

David Goffin is unlikely to forget his only prior career meeting with Cam Norrie in a hurry and what price on a similar outcome?

That day in Barcelona on the clay, Goffin got bageled in set one, led set two by a break and then retired with an adductor injury.

And after an absolute marathon against Frances Tiafoe in the last round here for Goffin it would be little surprise to see the oft-injured Belgian struggle physically against the relentless no-miss tennis of Norrie.

Goffin said of his 4h 37m battle with Tiafoe: "Just after the match point, I was mentally dead, because I had to stay fresh all the time to keep my serve, to fight to come back after losing the third set."

Perhaps surprisingly, Goffin has won 10 of his last 12 five-set matches, but what of his record in the matches immediately after a five setter at a major?

Well, here it is in full:

Lost to Rublev 1-3
Beat Verdasco 3-1
Beat Moutet 3-0
Lost to Cecchinato 1-3
Beat Monfils 1-0 (RET)
Beat Stepanek 3-0
Beat Gulbis 3-1
Lost to Bautista Agut 1-2 (RET)
Beat Clement 3-2

Pretty decent and certainly nothing like that of Jiri Vesely that I referenced a few days ago and Goffin does have a good career record against left-handers (62% win rate), but as ever with Goffin, it's not that simple - he's lost eight of his last 11.

I think in a match like this, with Norrie playing in that durable style of his, it's got to come down to fitness and it's tough to fancy Goffin coming out on top after that Tiafoe battle.

Norrie's ahead on the grass court stats (last 10 main level matches), but not by much: 107 combined hold/break total for him compared to 105 for Goffin, so with Goffin's likely fatigue built in as well the prices look reasonable.

The one big-priced bet that does hold some appeal is to play the '6-0 set in the match?' market.

If we're thinking there may be some fatigue affecting Goffin's play, then he may well only have a couple of competitive sets in him and a bagel set is a possibility

Norrie has already dished out three 6-0 sets so far this Wimbledon (against Jaume Munar, Stevie Johnson and Pablo Andujar) and he's also bageled Peter Gojowczyk and Manuel Guinard this season as well.

If we're thinking there may be some fatigue affecting Goffin's play, then he may well only have a couple of competitive sets in him and a bagel set is a possibility.

Goffin is no stranger to dropping sets 6-0 - he's been bageled 19 times in his main level career (three times this season), which is the same as Nikoloz Basilashvili, who regularly drops sets without winning a game.

Odds of 9.517/2 make this a reasonable long-odds pick for Tuesday.

Recommended bets

Back a 6-0 set in Norrie vs Goffin @ 9.517/2

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