Wimbledon Betting / Sean Calvert / 20 June 2011 /

Andy Murray, Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic are the only guys who can win Wimbledon. Of these we must favour the latter because he's been the best player this year and has the kindest draw, says Sean Calvert.

The draw has been made for the Wimbledon Men's Singles and the bad news for UK tennis fans is that Andy Murray has been drawn with Rafa Nadal.

Although, as the number four seed, he has to beat two of the three best players in the world if he wants to win it, so the good news is he might not have to play Roger Federer. Maybe.

The top four look to have it between them once again, such is their dominance of the sport at the moment (with the exception of Del Potro) and I don't see the fact that this tournament is played on grass making the slightest bit of difference.

There isn't really that much between the surfaces these days and the top four are so good that they can make subtle changes to their games in the time running up to the Slams and during the fortnight itself.

The top four are the best on any surface and gone are the days where you would look for grass-court specialists when considering a punt at Wimbledon.

You can do that up to a point in the three set events, such as Queen's, because those matches are more of a sprint, but you've got to bring something huge to the table to beat the main men over five sets.

Alejandro Falla proved that last year when leading Federer by two sets to love before losing in five and there are many other examples.

Jamie Pacheco takes a look at the big four in depth in this article, but where I disagree slightly with Jamie is in the surface specialists point.

Sure, there are plenty of players who can't or won't play on grass, but with the notable exception of Juan Martin Del Potro, who clearly hates the green stuff, these are the lower ranked clay-courters, who just see it as a distraction or as a chance to take a holiday - much like Andy Roddick does on the clay.

Who would have classed Tomas Berdych as a grass-court specialist? Yet he made the final last year despite only having reached the quarter finals once in his previous six visits to SW19.

He did it because he was playing at the top of his game and was full of confidence and I would argue that him reaching the final would have been the same whatever surface the tournament was played on at that point in time.

Other than Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, who I tipped for Queen's, and maybe Roddick on a good day, I'm looking at the top-100 and not seeing anyone who is markedly better on grass than any other surface.

The likes of Feliciano Lopez, Roddick, Tsonga et al are slightly better on grass, which might mean they make the quarters rather than last 16, but they're not much more of a threat at Wimbledon than they would be at say the US Open.

Milos Raonic is a wild card who is yet to be beaten down by losses to the top four, having not played three of them, but his form has tailed off since the spring and a loss to Philipp Petzschner in Halle isn't Slam contender form.

Tsonga is too streaky to win at the moment over five sets, because as Murray proved at Queen's, you just have to wait for him to start missing, which sometimes you don't have the luxury of over three set matches, but you will this fortnight.

Roddick doesn't look as if he has enough left in the tank to win a Slam now after eight years without one and his hammering by Murray at Queen's showed how far away he still is.

He also lost to Yen Hsun Lu last year and doesn't have the game to blow players away any more.

The draw for Nadal looks the toughest, with Raonic, Del Potro, Mardy Fish, Berdych, and Fernando Verdasco in his quarter, but as tired as he looked at Queen's, he did the exact same thing last year (lose in the quarters) and went on to win.

Murray's draw, which on paper has a few big names in it, shouldn't be that tough for a top four player.

As well as the aforementioned Roddick, there's Richard Gasquet, Marin Cilic, Stan Wawrinka, Gael Monfils, and Janko Tipsarevic, but none of them would class grass as their best surface and while one or two might cause a problem, the Scot should progress.

There may be a chance to profit here though, as Murray usually has to come from way behind to win at some point and that's the time to back him at a big price, rather than now at [7.6]

In the bottom half, Federer has David Nalbandian, Tsonga and David Ferrer to worry about, but I doubt he'll lose much sleep over it and incredibly, John Isner will play Nicolas Mahut again!

But the best draw of them all has to be Djokovic's. The Serb has Robin Soderling, Marcos Baghdatis, Michael Llodra, Viktor Troicki, Jurgen Melzer, Nikolay Davydenko and Lleyton Hewitt in his section and that surely won't cause any dramas.

Djokovic has been the best player all year and reached the semis last year whilst playing appallingly by his standards, so when you combine that with a draw in which only Federer can realistically stop him (the pair have never met on grass), you have an attractive looking bet at around the [5.0] mark.

Recommended bet:

Back Novak Djokovic to win Wimbledon at [5.0]

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