Wimbledon, 2nd round, Wednesday, 02.07.2025, 14:50
Third round is the end of the road – but that should finally change in 2025. At the ripe old age of 35, Jan-Lennard Struff wants to reach the last 16 at Wimbledon for the first time, but he knows that round 2 will be anything but easy.
The fact that he is going into the match as the underdog is unlikely to bother him too much. The veteran is fired up and desperate to progress. In my Auger-Aliassime Struff tip, I’ll tell you why I think the “over 3.5 sets” bet is a great bet.
It’s Jan-Lennard Struff’s Grand Slam fate: the big opponents always come early, TOO early. After the Warsteiner has been treading water in 2025 so far, losing to Filip Misolic in the first round of the French Open, he traveled to London with high ambitions.
The impressions from the preparation were not particularly positive. In Stuttgart, he was eliminated in the second round by Jiri Lehecka. Shortly afterwards in Halle, he was knocked out in the first round by Lorenzo Sonego.
Two wins since mid-February, one of which was due to his opponent retiring? With this less than impressive record, Struff traveled to the English capital a few days ago. There, he faced Filip Misolic in the first round.
An easy task? Definitely not! Misolic had reached the third round of the French Open as a qualifier and won the Challenger in Poznan shortly afterwards without losing a set.
At Wimbledon, the Austrian made it through qualifying and was often considered the favorite against Stuff. But the German finally showed his strong, confident side again.
In the end, Struff won 6-2, 5-7, 6-3, 6-3, conceding only one break point. With 18 aces, 82% of points won on his first serve and 73% on his second, his serve was perfect on the fast grass.
If the current world number 125 had avoided the six double faults, the match might have been over even quicker. Struff is likely to be well aware of the task that now awaits him.
He last faced Felix Auger-Aliassime at the Australian Open just under six months ago, losing 3-6, 0-6, 6-4, 1-6. Nevertheless, the Canadian’s 3-2 lead looks relatively narrow.
Interesting: The two have never faced each other on grass before, so we are in for a little premiere. If you take a look at our bookmakers offering tax-free betting, you will see that Struff is not the favorite in this second round.
From a German perspective, the odds are an average of 3.35 to 1.35. At the same time, however, Struff is also considered capable of achieving something. A set win, for example, is only 1.30 at Betano.
For Felix Auger-Aliassime, it is not a given that he will even be able to play in this second round, as he came very close to not making it this far! James Duckworth was on the verge of knocking him out of the tournament as early as possible.
After a real thriller, the final score was 6-2, 3-6, 6-7, 6-4, 6-4. Auger-Aliassime was able to take a deep breath. Although he served 26 aces, he also made eleven double faults.
Once again, he won 86% of the points on his first serve, a statistic in which Struff had also been very strong. After his embarrassing exit in the first round of the French Open (Auger was already leading Matteo Arnaldi 2-0), the Canadian won three grass court tournaments in a row.
In Stuttgart, he reached the semi-finals, narrowly losing to the eventual champion Taylor Fritz. In Halle, however, he did not perform particularly well, crashing out in the second round against Karen Khachanov. His latest impressions from Mallorca show a second semi-final.
Four years ago, Auger-Aliassime played a really strong Grand Slam tournament in London. He beat Alexander Zverev, among others, and only came to a halt in the quarter-finals against Matteo Berrettini. But: Disappointing performances were to follow.
Most recently, Auger-Aliassime was knocked out in the first round three times in a row! 13 sets and seven tiebreaks – the matches were just as tough as the one he played a few days ago in the first round.
My Auger-Aliassime Struff tip
From a German perspective, I’m naturally keeping my fingers crossed for Jan-Lennard Struff that he can confirm his form from the first round. His performance against Filip Misolic surprised me extremely positively. Of course, you know his statistics. 2025 is not his year at all.
But what hasn’t happened yet can still happen. Felix Auger-Aliassime is anything but unbeatable; he almost lost in the first round. That’s why I’m sticking to my guns: no one will get through unscathed. So my prediction is:
We’ll see more than three sets!
