Tennis
2009-06-29 - Venus Williams vs Ana Ivanovic
A Sports Betting Pick by Auls
Tennis: England, Wimbledon Women
Monday 29th June 2009 - Start 13:00
Venus Williams
Venus Williams is the official Queen of Wimbledon of this generation. She is the current holder of the Wimbledon trophy, she has won 3 of the last 4 tournaments here and she has reached 7 of the last 9 Finals here since 2000.
Venus has actually won 14 consecutive matches at Wimbledon without losing a set and she has won 16 matches in a row at the tournament. This should give a clear example of how difficult it is to beat Venus here at Wimbledon.
Venus has comfortably gone through each round of the tournament so far and this is going to be her biggest test so far. Williams has the big serve and the good net play to be a real talent on this surface. In the last round she won 68% of the points behind serve and was only broken 1 time from 2 chances she gave away.
Venus won 53% of the points off her opponent's serve and this allowed her to create 12 break point chances with 5 breaks of serve.
Ana Ivanovic
Ana Ivanovic has had a terrible time since winning the French Open in 2008 which allowed her to take over the Number 1 ranking in the World. However, she comes into this tournament seeded Number 13 and now faces the awesome Venus Williams.
Ivanovic has only progressed beyond this stage 1 time at Wimbledon. She has also already lost a grass court match this season at Eastbourne to Nadia Petrova.
Ivanovic has come through to this stage by dropping only 1 set. She was in real deep trouble in the 1st round, eventually coming through 8-6 in the final set. The Serb won an impressive 72% of the points off her serve in her last match with Sam Stosur. She allowed 1 break point chance which was gobbled up by Stosur.
She then won 44% of the points of the Stosur serve which allowed her to break serve 4 times from the 8 chances she created.
Head to Head
This is the 7th meeting between the 2 players and it is Venus Williams who leads the head to head 5-1.
They have previously played each other at Wimbledon in the Semi Final of 2007. On that occasion Williams was an easy 6-2, 6-4 winner.
Prediction
I am very suprised to see Venus as the second favourite for this tournament as she has shown her pedigree on the surface time after time. She has looked increasingly comfortable as the week progressed and will not have too many nerves in this match.
Ana Ivanovic is having a decent run here, but she has not been the same player as she was last year and doesnt always give me much belief in her game. She is over powered, is playing someone with a better serve who attacks the net, and also someone who can take advantage of her 2nd serve.
Venus has the all round better game than Ivanovic and for that reason I would be surprised to see her lose a set. I see another 6-2, 6-4 win for Venus coming up
The Pick :
Venus Williams
