Tennis
2009-06-29 - Novak Djokovic vs Dudi Sela
A Sports Betting Pick by Auls
Tennis: England, Wimbledon Men
Monday, 29th June 2009 - Start 13:15
Novak Djokovic
It was my opinion at the start of this tournament that Novak Djokovic was not one the serious contenders for this title even though he was the World Number 4. However, Nadal's withdrawal from the tournament meant Juan Martin Del Potro was moved from his section which gave Djokovic an easier, if not easy, start to the tournament.
Djokovic really struggled in the first 2 rounds at Wimbledon before turning on the style against Mardy Fish in the last round to record a 6-4, 6-4, 6-4 victory.
So far Djokovic has dropped 41 games in the tournament but the last round was by far his most impressive. He served 63% first serves and won 75% of the points behind his own serve. There was only 1 break point chance for Fish which was taken.
He won an impressive 40% of the points of the Fish serve which is impressive and he took 4 chances to break serve from the 12 opportunities created.
Djokovic hit 23 winners and made only 15 unforced errors.
Dudi Sela
Didi Sela came through a tough match with Tommy Robredo in round 3 which was a surprise to me but a lot of that was down to the performance of the Spaniard rather than Sela.
Sela served at 63% first serves and managed to win 60% of the points behind his serve. He gave up 10 break point chances for Robredo and was broken 6 times.
The Israeli won 38% of the points behind the Robredo serve and he took 6 break point chances from 9 he created. It is also interesting to note that Robredo's fastest serve was 130mph whereas Sela's fastest serve was 114mph.
Sela hit an incredible 57 winners in the match and made 29 unforced errors.
Head to Head
Djokovic and Sela have met once before in a Davis Cup match in 2006. The meeting took place on a hard court in Israel where Djokovic won in straight sets 6-1, 6-2, 7-6
Prediction
Novak Djokovic really took away some of my doubts about his chances to win this tournament with his performance against Mardy Fish and I think he is now the worthy favourite to play Roger Federer in the Semi Final. He looks like a player that is beginning to fire at the right time as week 2 of the tournament is set to begin.
Dudi Sela has performed some feat to reach the second week of the tournament and showed some real grit to get through against Robredo in 4 tight sets of tennis. He will need to raise his game another couple of levels for this match with Djokovic and I am not convinced he can do so.
This match should be a comfortable win for Djokovic and I am going to play him on the handicap. He will need to break serve 5 times more than he is broken, and I think the previous round shows this is more than possible.
Djokovic to come through 6-2, 6-2, 6-3
The Pick :
Novak Djokovic
