Williams to sweep Azarenka once again

Serena Williams faces her bunny, Victoria Azarenka, in the Wimbledon women`s singles semi-finals so the 13-time Grand Slam singles champion is fairly priced at around 8-13 to qualify for her seventh Centre Court title decider.

Williams and Azarenka have met eight times during their professional careers and, with the exception of a 6-3 6-1 win for the Belarusian on a Miami hard court in 2009, it has been the American shaking hands at the net as the victor.

Overall, Williams leads Azarenka 7-1 in matches, 13-4 in sets and 87-61 in games, with their only meeting on a grass court resulting in a 6-2 6-3 Wimbledon women`s singles quarter-final triumph for the American three years ago.

Five of their eight meetings have occurred in major events when there has been a lot at stake and they met for the first time in 2008, by which stage Azarenka has played two full years on the WTA Tour and established her credentials, so none of Williams` wins have been particularly soft.

Williams appears to have her game head on following the huge shock of crashing out of the French Open at the first hurdle and that spells very bad news for Australian Open champion Azarenka, who is looking for her second Grand Slam title.

The bigger server in women`s tennis, Williams has sent down 61 aces, won 80 per cent of her first-serve points and 63% of her second-serve points. Those are tournament-leading statistics in each of the three categories and explains why the American wins so many easy points in her matches.

Such has been the dominance of Williams over Azarenka that the American represents reasonable value at around 6-4 to reach Saturday`s final courtesy of a straight-sets success.

Angelique Kerber and Agnieszka Radwanska clash in the other semi-final, with bookmakers favouring the German (around 8-11) over the Pole (around 11-10) in match betting.

Those odds seem about right. Kerber and Radwanska have split their previous four meetings, none of which have been on a grass court, but the German`s recent form on the fastest of tennis surfaces does read better than that of the Pole.

Rather than backing Kerber to beat Radwanska, punters may want to investigate the merits of backing the match going to three sets, something that each of their three completed encounters have done. The odds are attractive as well.

Kerber is about 3-1 to win in three sets and Radwanska is about 9-2 to win in three sets. All that means you can get about 11-10 that the match goes the distance and not have to pick which one of the Wimbledon women`s singles semi-final debutants handles the pressure best and wins the tie.

The 2011 US Open meeting of Kerber and Radwanska went to three sets, with the German getting up 6-3 4-6 6-3. It would be no surprise to see a similar scoreline on Centre Court.

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04/07/2012     © Frixo 2024