Tennis expert Andy Schooler brings you his best bets for day four of Wimbledon 2025.
Tennis betting tips: Wimbledon day four
1.5pts Marin Cilic (+6.5) to beat Jack Draper on the game handicap at 8/11 (BoyleSports, betway)
0.5pt Marin Cilic to beat Jack Draper at 7/1 (BoyleSports)
1pt Miomir Kecmanovic (-3.5) to beat Jesper de Jong at 3/4 (betway, 10Bet)
Jack Draper v Marin Cilic
There were many upsets in round one and there is potential for another here.
Cilic made the 2017 Wimbledon final (losing to a certain Roger Federer) and has also played in three other quarter-finals.
Admittedly, they were a while ago now and the Croatian has struggled with injury issues in recent years.
However, he’s back fit again now and arrives here on a winning run on what is his favourite surface.
His big serve has always enjoyed cut-through on the grass – he’s also a former champion at Queen’s Club – and it helped him claim the recent Challenger Tour title in Nottingham.
He was broken just three times in five matches that week with his first-serve points won percentage topping 85 in each of the last three rounds. It was up at 84% on Tuesday when he beat Raphael Collignon in round one here.
Now clearly the level of opponent rises considerably here but Draper hasn’t faced the Cilic serve before and when he has gone up against the big servers on slick surfaces in recent times, they have caused him problems.
Felix Auger-Aliassime (Cincinnati), Taylor Fritz (Paris) and Matteo Berrettini (Doha) all won sets against Draper, while we also saw at Queen’s a couple of weeks ago that it was far from a breeze for the Briton.
Alexei Popyrin took Draper all the way to a final-set tie-break, Brandon Nakashima – another strong server – made it to 6-4 in the third. Eventually Draper was beaten by Jiri Lehecka, who served well all week, in the semis.
Clearly Cilic will need to elevate his game to a high level but we’ve seen his best level in the past is very good.
He’ll doubtless have taken inspiration from the shocks so far in SW19 and, perhaps more so, the performance in defeat of fellow veteran Fabio Fognini against Carlos Alcaraz.
I expect Cilic’s serve to keep this close at least and will back him on the game handicap where he gets a 6.5 start.
Given what’s occurred so far in SW19, I also can’t resist a small bet on Cilic landing the upset. After all, Draper has never gone past round two here before and has all the pressure on his shoulders as the big home hope this year.
That’s a 7/1 shot, with a decent alternative being Cilic to win the first set at 3/1.
Miomir Kecmanovic v Jesper de Jong
I’m still not quite sure how, but De Jong denied us a winner on Tuesday when defeating Christopher Eubanks from two sets to one down.
Most frustrating was that Eubanks got to 15-40 on the De Jong serve at 5-5 in the decider but couldn’t convert. He ended with an appalling 0-for-12 record on break points.
The American’s weak returning proved costly but Kecmanovic should be much better on that front and, combined with cooler conditions, should mean less serve dominance.
Despite his first-round win, De Jong is still to beat a top-100 player on grass and now he faces one inside the top 50.
Kecmanovic, a former grasscourt finalist on the ATP Tour in Antalya, should be buzzing after taking down seed Alex Michelsen in his opening match, a contest which saw him lose serve only twice in five sets.
He’s the better player here and should win. I’ll back him on the game handicap, giving up a 3.5 start.
Posted at 1445 BST on 02/07/25
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