The fastest court in tennis doesn’t care about your rank. Sharps ride the serve-heavy underdogs who thrive on grass.
Tennis betting fans with the need for speed are all over Wimbledon.
In spite of its polite and polished image, the oldest Grand Slam event is all about power and muscle.
The All-England Club’s green grass courts provide even faster speeds than hard courts.
Bettors who are looking to make their own green would be wise to do their homework on grass specialists instead of just picking the top seeds.
Wimbledon offers tennis action across way more than moneyline and basic spread bets. And it has more than enough to offer the Lucky Rebel player who knows to look away from the mainstream plays.
Check the latest odds at Lucky Rebel
Unseeded Grass Specialists Score Early Upsets
Big serves make the biggest impact at Wimbledon.
The grass makes for a fast, low bounce. That makes for tougher returns.
Isner, Roddick and Raonic are all big hitters who made their name almost entirely at Wimbledon because they were such massive servers. Isner still holds the tournament record with 214 of them in 2018.
But it’s the unseeded big-serving players, or those at least outside the Top 20, that can serve up the biggest payouts for sharps every July.
Since 2010, Rounds 1 and 2 at Wimbledon have seen them win 35% of the time against seeded players.
An incredible 13 men’s seeds went down in R1 this year. Underdog bettors had a field day.
How would they have spotted the grass specialists that dissected the men’s side?
Be on the lookout for clues like:
- Elite serve speed and accuracy. These are among the easiest stats to locate and they tell a big story about who to pick and who to fade in the early going. Watch up-and-coming Ben Shelton here before he becomes a regular top seed.
- Effective volley and net play. These are also easily trackable stats over a player’s career and recent history. Net Points Won Percentage and Serve-and-Volley Success Rate are useful for Lucky Rebel tennis bettors. Hubert Hurkacz is the lower seed to keep an eye on for Round 1 and Round 2 upsets, as is Jasmine Paolini.
- Flat groundstrokes. These are key at Wimbledon. A flatter groundstroke is tougher to get to at any tournament, but the grass delivers an even lower bounce. Groundstrokes Win Percentage and Feed Rate are the stats to measure this.
- Ability to keep points short and pressure return games. In contrast to the French Open and longer rallies, Wimbledon encourages shorter points and pressure returns.
Agassi was the GOAT back in the day for this. DYOR on Rally Length and Percentage Short points to spot the best upset candidates at Wimbledon. Young Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard is one the ones to bank on before he climbs the ranks in the coming years. He also set the all-time record for fastest serve this year, clocking a cool 153mph.
Tiebreaks Are Underdog Friends
Of all the different tennis court surfaces at the Grand Slam events, it’s grass that has the highest percentage of tiebreak sets.
This is why Breakfast at Wimbledon often turns to Lunch at Wimbledon too.
More tiebreaks, more tennis, more time.
It rolls this way because of short points. The edge to the server that exists in all of tennis is more pronounced at Wimbledon because booming serves do the talking here more than at other events.
Breaks are rare, so sets are naturally pushed to 6-6 and then a tiebreak.
And this is where underdogs again can shine. They can serve their way to a tiebreak and win it largely by staying on serve.
The underdog value comes in with low margin tennis like Wimbledon, with its close sets.
Even if a ’dog loses out overall, they can often beat a set spread just by staying on serve and forcing a tiebreak.
Since Isner and Mahut’s epic 11-hour+ match in 2018, with the fifth set going to 70-68, Wimbledon officials stepped in and instituted a 12-12 final-set automatic tiebreak.
This means late-set live betting is more volatile. Sharps can really dig in here.
A razor-close match, now with fatigue setting in on the favorite and levelling the playing field, has a higher upset probability.
Live betting Lucky Rebel players love these swings, where one service game can flip the match and help bettors cash.
Short Grass Season Means Mispricing
The grass court season in tennis is the shortest of them all. Hard courts don’t care about the weather, neither do clay courts really.
But grass is a more fickle surface.
Ahead of Wimbledon, there’s the Queen’s Club tournament, Halle, and Stuttgart and a small sprinkling of others.
For Lucky Rebel bettors, this is where your homework can really pay off.
The Sportsbooks have less data to work from because of the shorter season. A smaller sample size means more errors are possible. Chemistry 101. Or maybe it was Physics.
This can show up at Wimbledon in a few different ways:
- It’s tough to really assess a player’s grass court form based on way more hard court and clay matches play. This means a weak-looking grass resumé might surprise at the next Wimbledon. But fade the really specialized clay court merchants anyway, just to be safe.
- Streakier players who are on form in the events leading up to Wimbledon can carry that momentum, but their odds are often mispriced because of a longer, lower-seeded history. Their hot streak has not been fully accounted for by the books.
- Some books price by ranking, not really giving any weight to the player’s grass court game or service strength (a big plus at the All-England Club).
Some pretty basic homework or a deeper dive by the smart money should yield great value plays at Wimbledon.
Lucky Rebel players will also serve themselves some W’s by banking on Top 30 players who have an elite service game and combine with form players coming into the current Wimbledon.
They can produce some of the biggest early upsets at favorable odds.