Wimbledon Men's Singles Day 5 Tips: Murray with overnight edge on Tsitsipas

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Andy Murray is one set away from beating Stefanos Tsitsipas

There's a mix of second round and third round matches on the men's singles schedule at Wimbledon on Friday, and returning with his thoughts is Dan Weston...

  • Murray one set away from round three

  • Vesely surprisingly even money against O'Connell

  • Van de Zandschulp potential underdog value


Murray leads Tsitsipas overnight

In the big match on Thursday, Andy Murray left the court 2-1 up in sets against Stefanos Tsitsipas, and if the Greek is to prevail, he will need a second successive five-setter.

The winner faces Laslo Djere, who disposed of his second big server in a row, Ben Shelton, and that's a very winnable match for either of Murray and Tsitsipas here as they look to move towards week two. Murray is 1.538/15 to finish off Tsitsipas on Friday.

Broady back in action against Shapovalov

Murray's fellow Brit Liam Broady stole the headlines on Thursday with a comeback win over top 10 opponent Casper Ruud, while Taylor Fritz also exited, throwing a way a two-set lead against Mikael Ymer. As has been the case for the week so far, getting back on schedule could be tricky, so some of the matches discussed may not be concluded, or even started, until Saturday.

Broady's reward is a third round clash with Denis Shapovalov, and the man from Stockport is a heavy underdog at 3.6013/5 to cause another shock. Whoever does win that match will have the draw open up for them, with the winner facing either Guido Pella or Roman Safiullin.

Pella has a pretty mediocre record on grass but has stepped up on occasions, with massive underdog wins at Wimbledon against Marin Cilic, Kevin Anderson, Milos Raonic and now Borna Coric within the last five years, and it's so difficult to know where the Argentine is at right now.

He shouldn't be great on grass, and probably is coming towards the end of his career, so it's not a huge surprise to see opponent Safiullin the favourite here at 1.558/15

Vesely with greater grass court pedigree

Going back to round two, Jiri Vesely has a solid medium-term and long-term record on grass, and I'm quite surprised he's around even money against Chris O'Connell. A win over Sebastian Korda in round one will have heartened the Czech, coming back off long-term injury, and he's also defeated Alexander Zverev and Dominic Thiem here over the past years.

There's not a lot of evidence of O'Connell having a particularly high level on grass, so let's see how this develops - if pushed, Vesely at 1.981/1 would be my pick on Friday.

The other cracking match from the second round is Matteo Berrettini against Alex De Minaur, with Berrettini getting past Lorenzo Sonego eventually after losing to him easily on his injury comeback last month.

That should hearten the Italian in terms of getting back to a decent level, but he will need that and more if he is to get past Queen's finalist De Minaur. The market agrees, pricing Berrettini at 2.56/4, but if fit, he has a decent chance in what should be a match dominated by serve.

Van de Zandschulp with a decent chance as underdog

Finally, Botic van de Zandschulp beat Alejandro Davidovich Fokina in straight sets as a 1.75/7 favourite last season on grass at Queen's Club, but is underdog on Friday against the Spaniard.

This doesn't make a lot of sense to me based on numbers - van de Zandschulp has enough of an edge on serve and return points won on the surface over the last couple of years to make last year's price look about right, but we can get 2.6213/8 on him to progress.

What the market is probably taking into account is a horror run of six losses on the spin prior to his four-hour win over Zhizhen Zhang in round one, so Van de Zandschulp will need to get back to his best if he is going to overturn the odds here.

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