Wimbledon, quarter-finals, Wednesday, 12/07/2023
Matteo Berrettini was considered a secret favourite for the Wimbledon title after his strong results. But Carlos Alcaraz quickly put an end to his hopes in the round of 16.
Now Holger Rune is waiting for the young Spaniard. Who will prevail and reach the semi-finals? I analyse the match in my Alcaraz Rune tip.
Alcaraz remains unbeaten this grass court season. He won the preparation tournament at the Queens Club without much trouble after brief teething problems.
At Wimbledon, he also started at full throttle, defeating Jeremy Chardy and Alexandre Muller without losing a set.
Nicolas Jarry made life more difficult for him in round three, won a set and had another chance to equalise in the fourth round before Alcaraz raised the level.
Matteo Berrettini (3-6, 6-3, 6-3, 6-3) was to be an even tougher hurdle. However, the grass court specialist, who has only found his form in the course of the tournament, sprinkled in a surprising number of errors and went down after leading the set.
Against Holger Rune, high-flyer Alcaraz is again the favourite in the quarter-finals. Bet365 offers odds of 1.25 to win, with the Dane in the 4.00 range.
Twice the two players, who turned 20 in the spring, have faced each other. In the Next Gen ATP Finals 2021, Alcaraz won after three sets. In the quarter-finals of the Masters in Paris, Alcaraz had to retire at 3-6, 6-6.
A few days later, Rune celebrated his only win to date at 1000 level against Novak Djokovic. In 2022, Rune did not get on well on grass, losing all his opening matches at Halle, Eastbourne and Wimbledon.
He played his first grass court matches at Wimbledon in the juniors and at least made it into the third round.
Rune made a much better start to the 2023 grass court season, reaching the semi-finals at the Queens Club, beating Maxime Cressy, Ryan Peniston and Lorenzo Musetti. The final match was against Alex De Minaur.
In Wimbledon, it started with two three-set wins against George Loffhagen and Roberto Carballes Baena. Things got dramatic against Alejandro Davidovich Fokina. In the decisive match tiebreak, Rune turned around a 5-8 deficit.
At 8-8, an underarm serve by the Spaniard caused a stir, to which Rune responded with a forehand cross-winner. He also started a comeback in the round of 16 against Grigor Dimitrov (3-6, 7-6, 7-6, 6-3).
In all four matches Rune played at least one tiebreak, in total the counter stands at five 7-6 set outcomes. For over 0.5 tiebreaks, Bet365 provides 1.66 odds.
It is also conceivable that the match between the two top 10 players will not be over after three sets. After all, both players needed more than 3.5 rounds in the rounds before.
Betano offers 1.60 for more than 3.5 sets. Bet365 offers 2.30 when bets on 3.5 sets and 0.5 tiebreaks are combined.
If you are a fan of over/under games betting, you could also take a look at Bet-at-home. For over 35.5 games, the betting provider already has a 1.78.
My Alcaraz Rune Tip
Alcaraz and Rune are two players who will take on recurring protagonist roles in Grand Slam stories over the next few tennis years.
The Spaniard’s record is in a class of its own with 44 from 48 matches. He has yet to drop a match on grass, but now faces a bigger hurdle with the world number six as his opponent.
Due to the low number of matches on grass, his nine victories this year have pushed his win rate up to 84 per cent, making it his best surface by the numbers at the moment.
But Rune has also shown strong performances this grass season and I believe he can take a set off Alcaraz like Jarry and Berrettini. Therefore, I come up with the following Alcaraz Rune tip:
It goes for more than 3.5 sets
