For every Federer or Nadal, there’s a sleeper who’s hungry to shock the field and come out on top at the end of the Wimbledon tournament. Below are some key players bettors should be taking a long and hard look at beyond the favorites as we dive deep into the 2018 championship.
Raonic going to don white compression leggings at Wimbledon as support for his ailing right knee – at least in the first round – which is as much of a fashion sense as a tangible warning sign not to put too much hope on the Canadian making a deep run. Then again, Raonic showed he’s ready for battle a couple of weeks back when he made it to the finals of the grass-held Mercedes Cup in Stuttgart. He’s also just lost one match in six grass matches so far this year. In 2017, Raonic managed to get to as far as the quarterfinals, the third time since 2014 that he’s able to go that deep at Wimbledon.
Thiem is not that big of a gamer on grass, relatively speaking. He’s only played twice on such surface this year, coming away with a 1-1 record at the Gerry Weber Open in Halle last month. Nevertheless, his competitive spirt can’t be underestimated. The 24-year-old Australian has two singles titles in the year, winning the Argentina Open back in February and, more recently, the Open Parc Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes Lyon in France last May. Also, he just made his first finals appearance in a Grand Slam event when he lost to Rafael Nadal in the title match at the French Open last month. Notwithstanding his early exit in Halle, Thiem still looks primed for a much, much better performance in Wimby.
Querrey comes across as a guy who seems to be so close of achieving his dreams of winning a Grand Slam event, particularly at Wimbledon. The 30-year-old American has been heating up at Wimbledon over the past two years. In 2017, he dragged himself to the semifinals. A year prior to that, he sneaked into the quarterfinals. That’s the best two-year stretch of his Wimbledon participation career. He tried to sharpen his tools for Wimbledon by playing at the Fever-Tree Championship in London late last month. Unfortunately for him, he lost to Marin Cilic in the quarterfinals, but not before taking down Stanislas Wawrinka in the second round of that tournament. Dating back to 2016, Querrey is 9-3 on grass court matches.
