Wimbledon Betting / Gary Boswell / 19 June 2011 /

An ex-World Number One is there for the taking, a former teenage prodigy can roll back the years and a young Brit can warm the hearts of the home crowd. Gary Boswell reveals all.

As soon as the Singles draw for women at Wimbledon was announced at 10am Friday, Gary Boswell was stuck into the form study to identify his best five candidates for unexpected exit and thus his five best first round value bets against the book. A tougher than usual exercise is what Gary reports, but this is what he has come up with exclusively for betting.betfair.com.

JELENA DOKIC to beat FRANCESCA SCHIAVONE priced at around [2.42]

This is top of my pops in a toughish year where the draw has thrown up fewer candidates than usual on paper and more guesswork than I would normally like. There is a preponderance in the draw of players who have no collateral form against each other but this is an exception with Australian 59 ranked Dokic having a clear 3-0 head-to-head over current world number 6 and French Open finalist Schiavone.

Of course it is easy to make the case for the Italian on recent form, achievement and ranking, which is what the oddsmakers are busy doing. You can also argue that these two old-timers have had diametrically opposite careers with Dokic doing all her early class winning as a teenager (Wimbledon semi-finalist in 2000 as a 17 year old) whereas Schiavone has done the healthier slow maturity bit reaching her peak in winning last year's French Open as a 28 year old. There is also the Italian's reaching this year's final in defence to take into consideration. It was another impressive display and once more lit up by a tremendous match play spirit. Is all of that however enough to make her screaming red hot favourite for this when you take in her confirmed dislike of grass as a surface, her regular poor showing at Wimbledon (QF in 2009 is her best) and the fact that Dokic won their only recent showdown in February this year on her way to the title in Kuala Lumpar? That was Dokic's sixth th WTA career title by the way (Schiavone only has 4 career wins). By the time you read this, that may have become 7 wins as the Australian comes into Wimbledon having made final on the grass at Hertogenbosch in the Netherlands. She still knows how to win and on her day, a 59 ranking is a complete falsification. World number four at her best back in 2002.

She is a long-shot of sorts but at [2.42], she is a realistic value punt and Schiavone is a definite possible for shock first round exit.

MARIA-JOSE MARTINEZ SANCHEZ to beat JELENA JANKOVIC priced at around [3.0]

Jankovic is another big seed with a chance of early exit in this battle of the clay-court specialists. The 28 year old Spaniard holds a 2-1 head to head plus over the notoriously fickle Serbian, who tends only to play her best when on the Wimbledon show courts. Who can forget her handbag display when asked to play out on court 17 against Tanusugarn in 2009 where it looked at one point as though Jankovic's temples would pop - such was her disgust at being treated as an also-ran! The matches between these two are always tight - even on clay - and Martinez-Sanchez won their most recent in Rome 2010 in straight sets 7-6 7-5.

Neither player lists Wimbledon as a preferred place to play and the 72 ranking that the Spaniard has dropped to in recent months guarantees her impressive price.

VERA DUSHEVINA to beat ROBERTA VINCI priced at around [3.35]

Before staking this one, check out how the Italian did in the aforementioned Hertogenbosch final where she is set to face Jelena Dokic. A win in that would be a big fillip for Vinci and among her career best achievements and I'd be less inclined to oppose her in this if she wins convincingly in Holland.

On paper though, there is another value punt here as Russian 48 ranked Dushevina holds a 3-2 head to head over the 30-ranked Italian and it is fair to say that these two are very tightly matched with all five previous encounters going to a full three sets. In fact, there is a distinct in-play betting pointer here as the winner of the first set in all five encounters has gone on to lose the match! That's a statistical rarity and the sort of pattern bettors should always take note of.

The recent match-up in Beijing was won by Dushevina and she would be my marginal fav in a very 50-50 call making her also a marginal value bet at the current prices with the proviso that the stonking value bet lies in taking whoever loses the first set at the preferential in-play BACK odds that you are guaranteed to receive at Betfair!

A certain In-Play trading match for me.

LAURA ROBSON to beat ANGELIQUE KERBER priced at around [2.6]

Blimey, you don't often get a Brit in my first round bets! The rationale for this is not my usual head-to-head study where the German 77-ranked Kerber has a 1-0 lead. It lies simply in the fact that the first set of that match in Barnstaple 2008 was won by Robson as a 14 year-old and was the first public flowering of the much awaited young British talent. Her development since has been slower than some would like and she has had to have a wild card to get in here, ranked now at a lowly 257. Pressure on her of course is immense but I have always rated her potential and if she is going to register a first round Wimbledon win, then this is her best chance yet. A belief bet more than anything but there is a touch of realism in my expectation of her possible success. She hits the ball sweeter than any British woman has since the days of Sue Barker and the way she took a Wimbledon set off Daniela Hantuchova two years ago gives me great (and rational) hope.
Just the competitive maturity that is now required and it has to start somewhere. Why not here?

ANABEL MEDINA-GARRIGUES to beat JULIA GOERGES priced at around [3.0]

The 16 ranked German would have been a risky oppose earlier in the year but her form has tailed off a tad now and she faces the 43-ranked Spaniard against whom she has a 1-2 head to head deficit. The recent defeat to Medina-Garrigues was on clay where you would expect the Spaniard to hold sway but it is the 1-1 on hard court that impresses me more and brings the unseeded player well into the reckoning on the grass surface where they have never met before. Goerges should handle it better in theory but it is not her favourite surface either and at the prices I would marginally prefer to be with the Spaniard, considering the alarming downward spiral that Goerges' current form figures are showing.

A recommended single point on each to show an overall profit in the event of two or more correct.

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