Mayer to win battle of Bayreuth blokes

Florian Mayer and Philipp Petzschner meet in an all-German second-round match in the Wimbledon men`s singles and the bookmakers have not gone short enough about the former.

Mayer is available at around the 4-6 mark for the fourth career meeting of the Germans even though though he has defeated Petzschner once in each of the last three years.

Ranked number 29 in the world, Mayer beat Petzschner 6-3 6-2 on a Shanghai hard court in 2009. He followed that with an incredibly gutsy 0-6 2-6 6-4 6-2 6-2 victory over his fellow countryman at the 2010 Australian Open. And last year, on a clay court in Munich, he defeated Petzschner 6-3 6-4.

Both Mayer and Petzschner list Bayreuth, a town in northern Bavaria, as their place of birth so this is one of the most interesting matches in the Wimbledon men`s singles draw and one for which the seed should be considerably shorter odds.

Bookmakers have probably overreacted to Petzschner`s run to the final of the grass-court event in `s-Hertogenbosch last week when he beat Dmitry Tursunov, Edouard Roger-Vasselin and Xavier Malisse before going down to David Ferrer.

The reality is that, according to career data, Petzschner`s grass-court results are no better than those of Mayer so, with the favourite enjoying a clear head-to-head edge, it should pay to support the higher ranked Bayreuth bloke.

Radek Stepanek is going to start at about 2-5 to get the better of Benjamin Becker in their match and those odds appear fair enough given their rankings and history.

Czech Stepanek, seeded 28th, beat Becker 6-4 6-2 on a hard court in Memphis last year and generally gets to the third or fourth round of Wimbledon before getting blown away.

Never has Becker made it past the second round of Wimbledon - indeed, only once in 18 Grand Slam tournaments has the big-serving German reached the third round - and the odds are that he will be turfed out early once again.

The match between Juan Monaco and Jeremy Chardy is a very interesting one from a betting perspective, with bookmakers installing the former as the slightest of favourites.

Monaco has not dropped a set in his three career matches versus Chardy - two on clay courts on one on a hard court.

And therein lies the difficulty with betting on the fourth meeting of Monaco and Chardy: how will the number 15 seed deal with Chardy on a grass court? Answer that and you may find yourself one of the best value bets of Wimbledon.

Monaco has a lower winning percentage on grass than Chardy but it is not as if the Spaniard is a million miles worse than the Frenchman on the fastest of all surfaces.

Punters can get odds of around 5-6 about Monaco making it four wins from four matches against Chardy and that, when all is said and done, seems like a fairly decent bet.

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26/06/2012     © Frixo 2024