tennis | Tuesday, June 28, 2022 2:57 PM (Revised at: Wednesday, June 29, 2022 2:20 PM)

Wednesday's WTA Tennis Best Bet: Wimbledon, June 29th

Jon Reid

WTA Wimbledon BEST BET: Marie Bouzkova vs Ann Li

Wednesday, June 29th, TBD

After a jam-packed day two that saw many of the first day’s interrupted matches conclude, as well as others that never got underway on Monday played, we’re onto the second round at The Championships.

For the women’s selection on day three, we’ll look at a match between Marie Bouzkova and Ann Li.

With the former having triumphed in the first round in a gruelling match with the big-hitting Danielle Collins and appreciating quicker surfaces a bit more, I’m keen to back her here with the handicap well below four games.

The Czech native checks just about every box you’d want when looking to back a favourite on the handicap.

She’s more experienced than her American counterpart on grass. She’s also got a much better win percentage on the surface for her career.

In terms of form, Bouzkova enters this match more battle-tested. With a three-set loss to the powerful Shelby Rogers and a three-set victory over the equally strong Collins, Bouzkova has faced down more powerful players than Li.

The American’s run through the grass season has consisted of wins against the out-of-form Ludmilla Samsonova, Anna Bondar – who has played fewer than five professional matches on grass and Lucia Bronzetti – again, an inexperienced grass courter. The losses to more competent grass courters were all in straight sets and most sets were relatively lopsided.

That leads into the elo rating discussion, which favours Bouzkova by well over 100 points. With the elo rating being a metric of one’s talent on a surface accounting for quality of competition, it backs up the aforementioned analysis on Li’s lack of quality grass-court wins.

If we take a look at each of these two from a hold plus break percentage for their careers on grass, we can see Bouzkova holds up statistically as well, with her number coming in about 10 percentage points better.

Finally, from a matchup standpoint, Bouzkova also bests Li, who’s had her fair share of bouts with inconsistency this season. The power from the American is far from overwhelming, but the unforced errors can come fast and furious.

With Bouzkova being an excellent mover side-to-side along the baseline, she’ll be able to wait out those errors from Li. She’s also incredible at placing balls into either back corner of the court off both her forehand and backhand wings, which should allow her to turn the tide in many rallies and find some winners of her own.