Tennis
2009-06-26 - Tommy Robredo vs Dudi Sela
A Sports Betting Pick by Auls
Tommy Robredo
Tommy Robredo showed all the fight that would be expected of a top 20 player in the World after he fought back from 2 sets down to beat Stefan Koubek. He has already had a tough 1st round match with Luka Gregorc and will look to surpass his previous best of a 3rd round here at Wimbledon.
Robredo had to work extremely hard to fight back against Koubek in the last round and managed to win 69% of the points behind his serve. He gave up 3 breaks of serve on only 8 break point opportunities.
The Spaniard returned well but would look to improve the 5 break of serves he took from the 23 chances he created and he won 38% of the points off the Koubek serve.
Robredo hit 35 winners but also made 37 unforced errors which he would really need to cut down on as he progresses through this tournament.
Dudi Sela
Dudi Sela is the pride of Israel and is hoping to extend his stay in the tournament here. He was a surprising straight sets winner over Rainer Schuettler, last years Semi Finalist here, in round 2.
This is only his 2nd season playing in the main draw at Wimbledon and has already improved on last years 1st round loss. He has finally found some success on this surface this season after going 1-8 in his first 9 matches. This year he is 4-1 so far on the grass courts.
Sela won 70% of the points behind his serve in the last round and only had his serve broken 1 time from the only opportunity he gave up. He also had an impressive 67% of first serves.
Returning was a key issue for Sela in his last match, winning 45% of the points off the Schuetter serve and broken serve 4 out of 10 chances that he had.
Head to Head
These 2 players have met on 2 occasions and I am surprised to see that it is Sela who leads 2-0.
Both matches took place last year on the hard courts of Miami and Beijing, with Sela winning both without dropping a set. Sela beat Robredo 6-4, 6-1 in their last meeting.
Prediction
Tommy Robredo is looking to make the 4th round here for the first time in his career and he has had a strong year so far. He has also showed the desire to compete here in the last round when it could have been easy for him to collapse and move onto the hard court season.
Dudi Sela has done well to reach this stage of the tournament but it is interesting to see his lack of pedigree before this season. The win over Schuettler in the last round was impressive but defeats to Sluiter and Serra on this surface this season shows he is far from unbeatable.
I see that Sela has the head to head advantage over Robredo but I feel the experience of the Spaniard will help him through this match and give him his best performance at Wimbledon in his career.
Robredo to win 6-3, 6-4, 6-7, 6-4
The Pick :
Tommy Robredo
