Looking for Friday match picks? Click here!
Wimbledon rolls on from the All England Club on Thursday with a plethora of first and second-round matches on the card. I've got my eyes on a short favorite and long underdog as my favorite plays of the day.
Let's get into how to bet Tomas Martin Etcheverry vs Stan Wawrinka and Liam Broady vs Casper Ruud.
Match times are subject to change. Read here for advice on viewing Wimbledon matches.
July 6th Wimbledon Odds & Picks
Tomas Martin Etcheverry (+175) vs Stan Wawrinka (-215)
Time TBD
Grass isn't a surface where many young players have much experience on due to the lack of grass-court tournaments, so often times it can become a guessing game as to which players are going to fare well at Wimbledon. With a big forehand, Etcheverry is one who oddsmakers have clearly identified as a player who can step up and win matches on this surface. He was a favorite against fellow clay-courter Bernabe Zapata Miralles and enters this match as a very short underdog given his career resume.
Etcheverry simply hasn't proven anything off of a clay court, and he's hardly proven himself at the ATP level either. His quarterfinal run at the French Open has the market a lot more bullish on the Argentine than it should be, and I think this match represents a glaring inefficiency.
I mentioned the brief grass-court schedule above as reason why it's hard to get a read on form, and Stan Wawrinka's record is a good example of this. While he's won just three Wimbledon matches since 2016, he fell to Daniil Medvedev, Jannik Sinner and the big-serving Reilly Opelka — all of which aren't necessarily bad losses. Losing to Thomas Fabbiano in 2018 was a bad loss, but Wawrinka was in a huge rut during that entire season.
I thought Wawrinka proved a lot in an impressive first-round win over the talented Emil Ruusuvuori, and I feel great about him coming into this Etcheverry match. The Argentine has played 466 matches in his career across all levels, and 404 of them have come on clay. So, while it's usually excusable to have a very brief grass-court resume, Etcheverry's 2-4 career record on grass is more of a microcosm of a larger issue. He has little to no experience away from clay, and it's going to take some time and effort to round out his game.
A second-round match with a man who's got many years of experience both on grass and at the Grand Slam level isn't a good time to work on that. Etcheverry was holding on to dear life in his win over Zapata Miralles and won't be afforded the same number of careless errors in this one.
Pick: Wawrinka -1.5 sets (-130 via DraftKings)
Liam Broady (+370) vs Casper Ruud (-500)
8:30 a.m. ET
Ruud hasn't been shy about the fact that he's not expecting much from himself at Wimbledon. The former clay-court specialist has made some serious strides on hard courts over the last few seasons but is still 4-6 on grass for his career and he just picked up his second career win at Wimbledon over Laurent Lokoli earlier this week.
The French Open finalist had a tough time after an easy first set, and there's little evidence he's grown at all on grass. His biggest weapon is his topspin forehand, and on this surface it's not a very effective shot. On clay, it'll take a wicked bounce and put his opponents off. On grass, it'll sit up to be smacked.
This has all the makings of an upset. Liam Broady may be ranked outside the top 100, but when it comes to Wimbledon he's one of the more dangerous players. He had a dream run to the third round last year which captivated the entire nation, and you can be sure he'll have crowd support against Ruud in spades.
Broady's flat two-handed backhand should really hamper Ruud's ability to hammer an already-weakened forehand and get aggressive with it. As a left-hander, his forehand will be able to probe the Ruud backhand, which is the Norwegian's most glaring weakness.
The Brit should be around +250 to win this match, so I see a lot of value in backing the underdog and taking a bite out of this moneyline.
Picks: Broady +2.5 sets (-140 via FanDuel), Broady ML +370 (0.5u)
