Andy Schooler brings you his best bets for men’s semi-finals day at Wimbledon 2025.
Tennis betting tips: Wimbledon day 12
1pt Carlos Alcaraz to beat Taylor Fritz and both players to win a set at 11/8 (BoyleSports)
0.5pt Jannik Sinner to beat Novak Djokovic 3-0 at 14/5 (Spreadex, Sporting Index)
Taylor Fritz v Carlos Alcaraz (1330 BST)
Credit where credit’s due – Taylor Fritz has negotiated a very tricky draw to reach the semi-finals, which is more than his seeding of five expected.
He was up against it from round one when Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard was serving bombs and he’s not had a single straight-sets win, that’s if you don’t count his victory over Jordan Thompson, who retired early in the second set.
If he is fatigued at all, Alcaraz isn’t the opponent you want to be facing heavy-legged but probably of more concern is that Fritz will need to deliver his best level for a long period – not just is spits and spats – and that’s not really been happening during this tournament.
His quarter-final against Karen Khachanov was a case in point. Fritz played very well for two sets but suffered a real dip in the third and had to really battle to ensure he won in four.
To be fair, similar things can be said of Alcaraz.
I’ve written before about his mid-match dips and while he’s in fine form right now – he heads into this one having won 23 matches in a row – this isn’t dominance on a Roger Federer or Rafael Nadal scale.
Indeed, he’s now lost at least one set in 11 of those 23 matches, Fabio Fognini, Jan-Lennard Struff and Andrey Rublev all getting on the set scoreboard in SW19.
Alcaraz was better against Cam Norrie in Tuesday’s quarter-final but the Briton lacked real weapons with which to hurt the second seed; Fritz does not.
The Fritz forehand has always been strong, while the long-feared serve has been in good working order over the past couple of weeks – he has won 82% of points behind his first serve and 65% behind his second delivery.
The latter stat looks a key area. Fritz has won only 42% of second-serve points in two previous meetings with Alcaraz, both of which he’s lost in straight sets. He’ll need it above 50% to stand a chance here, I’d wager.
Alcaraz will certainly look to prey on this element – his first strikes can be devastating, whether in terms of winners or getting opponents immediately on the back foot.
However, it’s those dips – from both men – which I can’t really shift from my thinking.
I do believe Alcaraz will justify 2/11 favouritism but, like Struff and Rublev before him, Fritz has the big shots which are capable of making things awkward for the defending champion, at least for spells.
Alcaraz to win and both players to win a set is the call.
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Jannik Sinner v Novak Djokovic (after SF1)
This is the semi-final many wanted, although both players come into it under an injury cloud of some sort.
Sinner hurt his elbow during his last-16 match and wore a protective sleeve in his quarter-final win, while Djokovic suffered a nasty-looking fall towards the end of his last-eight victory over Flavio Cobolli.
He got up to win but admitted it was a concern and we can’t be sure how much damage, if any, was done.
Hopefully injuries won’t affect the match outcome; Sinner starts the 8/15 favourite with Djokovic at a best of 9/5.
Having backed Djokovic in the outright betting pre-tournament, I thought perhaps he might be a bit shorter come this stage had everything gone to plan.
Having seen how things have unfolded, I now make him less likely than I did to progress to the final from this match.
After strong opening week, Djokovic has dropped sets to Alex de Minaur and Cobolli, both matches in which he really had to dig deep to prevail. Both weren’t far away from going to a fifth set.
Bar his brush with defeat against Grigor Dimitrov in round four (the Bulgarian was two sets up when he was forced to retire), Sinner has been very solid.
He’s won all his other matches in straight sets and only Dimitrov has broken his serve so far. Frankly, I thought others might have landed a blow or two on him on this surface.
That strong serving performance has to be a worry for Djokovic, who has really struggled against the Italian’s delivery of late.
He’s broken Sinner’s serve just once in their last three matches (on the clay of Roland Garros last month) with two of those contests seeing him fail to create a single break point.
Sinner has now won the last four between the pair and is up 5-4 overall.
That serving H2H dominance certainly brings a straight-sets win into play and 14/5 is the best suggestion I have here.
However, I’ll keep stakes small and, given our outright position, I would not be at all disappointed to see Djokovic prove me wrong and prevail.
Posted at 1435 BST on 10/07/25
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