The road to Wimbledon goes through Birmingham this week as Ana Ivanovic returns to defend her title against a stacked field. This event was upgraded from International to Premier level in 2013 and this year’s renewal sees four Top 10 players entered.
Victoria Azarenka heads the market at 5.30 following a relatively successful clay campaign and arguably would have been higher in the rankings had she not run into Serena Williams so early in both Madrid and Roland Garros. Azarenka has only played four matches on grass since winning the bronze medal at the 2012 London Olympics and 14.50 about her to win Wimbledon looks better value.
Grass is a surface that suits the powerful serve of Sabine Lisicki and her big forehands. The German has a 33-11 record on tour and she won this title four years ago. Although she can be inconsistent from one match to the next, when Lisicki is in-form she’s hard to stop. In 2013 Lisicki upset Williams in the fourth round of Wimbledon en route to the final where she lost to Marion Bartoli.
Carla Suarez Navarro’s quarter of the draw looks the most open of the four. Suarez Navarro hasn’t beaten a Top 30 opponent on grass since the Olympics and Karolina Pliskova has only won against one in the same period. That quarter also has three qualifiers/lucky losers. Of the outsiders both Karin Knapp and Heather Watson are worth considering and the latter looks the better option. Watson played well in Eastbourne last season and she is better than what her current 80.0 quote suggests.
It’s been a while since we’ve last seen Eugenie Bouchard at such a big price to win a Premier level tournament but the Canadian has dropped nine of her last ten matches and appears to be suffering from a crisis of confidence since parting ways with former coach Nick Saviano. I thought a return to grass last week would turn around Bouchard’s fortunes but it all went pear-shaped at ‘s-Hertogenbosch when she surrendered a 4-0 final set lead against Yaroslava Shvedova in her opening round match.
It wouldn’t surprise me if Azarenka won but I’m siding with Lisicki to land her second WTA AEGON Classic title in Birmingham this week.
Recommended Bets (Betfair)
Back Lisicki outright at 8.60
Back-to-lay Watson at 80.00
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