The Fourth of July marks the end of the second round here at Wimbledon, and the action is very much just beginning to heat up. After some big-time matchups on Wednesday, we'll have more in store on Thursday.
With that said, the value in this slate may lie elsewhere. I've picked out a couple of matches later on in the day where oddsmakers are being a bit unfair to the underdogs.
Here are my Wimbledon predictions for Mpetschi Perricard – Nishioka and Giron – Zverev.
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Wimbledon Odds & Wimbledon Predictions
Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard (-210) vs Yoshihito Nishioka (+170)
9:30 a.m. ET
It seems that every year, we get a surprising season on the grass out of one competent player who's long struggle for wins on the surface. A couple years back, it was Filip Krajinovic, and last year it was Tommy Paul.
This year, while some interesting names have arose to potentially fit the bill, one man who's flown under the radar is Yoshi Nishioka. The lefty has endured a bad season, but if you follow his career results that is nothing new. He's fallen in to obscurity many times in the last two seasons only to rise up and remind us of the special talent he has.
Nishioka did just that in Eastbourne last week, beating two talented players in Arthur Fery and Alexander Vukic during qualifying before taking out Liam Broady and Marcos Giron en route to the semifinals. In the first round here, too, he beat one of the peskiest players on tour in Nuno Borges.
So, I'm feeling just about as good as you can feel about Nishioka. In theory, these courts should work very well for him given he can play defense like few else and has some solid net skills.
Mpetshi Perricard, meanwhile, is the total opposite of Nishioka — a player who relies upon heavy power. That, too, works on the grass — but when the Frenchman's asked to play long rallies he can really crumble. That should make for a nightmarish matchup against Nishioka here, and despite the nice season he's had — particularly on grass — I think this will be a step up he's not ready for.
Sebastian Korda afforded him a ton of errors and weak return games in the first round, something Nishioka won't do.
Pick: Nishioka ML (+170 via DraftKings)
Marcos Giron (+600) vs Alexander Zverev (-900)
12:30 p.m. ET
Generally speaking, Marcos Giron should be good on grass. He hits his forehand incredibly flat and can utilize his slice and volleying to great end here. With that said, he's only compiled a 21-17 record across all levels on the surface though three of his seasons have seen him go 5-3 — including this year.
While it hasn't been the best season for the American, Giron has at least begun to play better as we've gotten to grass. He's taken out some big names like Andy Murray, Andrey Rublev, Matteo Berrettini and Francisco Cerundolo in the last couple of weeks and despite a close scoreline in the first round, he went up against a very strong level from young Brit Henry Searle.
I think Giron is playing close to his best tennis right now, which should mean this positive stylistic matchup will provide him with a good result.
Alexander Zverev can boom his serve – maybe better than anyone in the world – but one thing he does not like at 6-foot-6 is low balls. You get a lot of those on grass, where the ball skids through the court as opposed to bouncing up, and that goes double against a player like Giron.
The surface hasn't been quite as kind to him as clay and hard courts throughout the last three years, and even in his tune-up in Halle I didn't think he looked overly inspiring, losing to Hubert Hurkacz in the semis after dropping two sets along the way there.
I'm expecting a very close one here, so give me all of these games.
Pick: Giron +5.5 games (+115 via DraftKings)
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