The rain has caused a bit of a mess at Wimbledon with matches having to take place on days they're not supposed to, but one thing is for sure, on Thursday we'll only see second round matches take place (and hopefully the second round play to completion)! Let's look at a pair of Wimbledon matches from the men's draw, where I think one player should ease through to the final 32.
Here are my bets for Draper-Norrie and Walton-Comesana in my Thursday Wimbledon predictions.
Match times are subject to change. Read here for advice on viewing Wimbledon matches.
Thursday Wimbledon Odds & Predictions
Jack Draper (-275) vs Cam Norrie (+220)
9:45 a.m. ET
After being insanely overvalued at -2000 in the first round against someone who has had his struggles, but consistently qualifies for Grand Slams because he does have talent, I think Draper is catching a little disrespect here against a fellow Brit that has had major struggles this year.
Norrie has spoken about trying to add dimensions to his game and that potentially leading to breaking up his rhythm, but whatever the reason, this is a mismatch of major proportions in my books.
The one thing going for Norrie? He has practiced a lot and knows Draper well (per his on court interview after his opening round tilt). That's the end of the list.
Draper has a huge edge on serve, hits much larger groundstrokes and is just as consistent, if not more so, despite hitting with more pace. Norrie's forehand has lost the plot as they would say across the pond in the last year or so, his serve is not tough to start points against and his backhand, while flat and compact, lacks any attacking prowess to boot.
He played a clay courter whose serves were rarely getting over 120mph last round and struggled to pull away until the final set.
Perhaps he ups his game on the big stage, but I make Draper a six game favorite in this contest. 1.5 game mistakes aren't something I usually see, even in best-of-five matches, so I'm going to pounce all over it. I'm going to be upping my stake here to two units as well.
Picks: Draper -4.5 games (+100 via bet365)
Adam Walton (-222) vs Francisco Comesana (+170)
TBD
The first thing to point out here is that even though Comesana would probably even fancy himself a clay court specialist, he's been fairly competitive in every match we've seen him play on quicker courts. I wouldn't be as quick to write him off as I would with his compatriots like Juan Manuel Cerundolo or even Mariano Navone on quicker courts.
That said, Walton should have the perfect game to send him packing in relatively straightforward fashion. Though Comesana has a pretty decent serve (again, unlike many of his clay specialist brethren), Walton is adept at putting balls in play, especially against those that can't necessarily blow him off the court. His style is obviously much more conducive to grass courts and as much as some people may be worried about the massive upset Comesana pulled, that came against an Andrey Rublev that has been horrible for quite some time now other than his title run in Madrid.
I'm not saying hammer away at this bet, but I do think that Comesana still lacks a bit from the baseline in lower bouncing conditions, and turning matches into a war from the baseline is precisely what Walton is best at doing.
Pick: Walton -3.5 games (-120 via BetMGM)
