Wednesday at Wimbledon

By Nishant Joshi

Yen-Hsun Lu should see his fairytale run come to an end at the hands of Novak Djokovic, who impressively took care of Lleyton Hewitt in the fourth round. Lu knocked out Andy Roddick in the fifth set to the shock of the partisan crowd, and the humble son of a chicken farmer was left to bask in muted glory, which I personally thought was quite a shame. In any case, Lu is just about a perfect match-up for Djokovic here. They have never met before but Lu essentially just pushes it from the baseline, and will allow

Knocked out Andy Roddick in the fifth set to the shock of the partisan crowd Yen-Hsun Lu

Djokovic plenty of opportunities to hit winners from all over. Take 3-0 with confidence.

Roger Federer takes on Czech player Tomas Berdych, with the two in contrasting form. Jurgen Melzer was expected to give Federer a serious run for his money, but he seemed to choke on the biggest stage and hand Federer an easy win. The Swiss has looked out of sorts for a while now, and even though he seems to focus on Grand Slams now, he is by no means immune to a loss here. Berdych is just about in the form of his life right now, and his undemonstrative nature allows him to fly under the radar. In the end, I expect Federer's grass court superiority to be the difference here, as although Berdych is in great form, I would be much happier backing him on hard court.

Nadal vs Soderling is a really tough match to price up - I find that particularly with Nadal, whenever it is deemed that his opponent has a real chance of taking him out, the prices are hard to gauge. On paper, he can look immensely vulnerable to in-form opponents at Grand Slam level - note Verdasco Australian Open 2009 and Monfils US Open 2009 with both players picking holes in Nadal's game and taking sets off him. However, usually Nadal finds a way to win. Despite having played each other a few times in the past year, it's hard to tell who goes into this game in better shape. Nadal struggled against Haase and Petzschner but ultimately his will to win saw him through. A lingering knee injury will likely hinder his progress against Soderling if he's at the top of his game, and it would be no surprise to see the Swede win. Overall I think that if Soderling wins, it will have to be in three sets, so I think it's worth backing 3-0 to the Swede while also backing Nadal in match odds as cover.

Perhaps the match of the day sees Andy Murray face Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, arguably the most charismatic and entertaining player on tour. Neither player has quite lived up to his potential yet, with Murray having lost two Grand Slam finals, whereas Tsonga lost a one-set lead in his only Grand Slam final to date. Tsonga is immensely naturally gifted, but lacks the guile of Murray, which is where this match becomes interesting. Murray's failures in big matches have always come down to poor tactics, and playing too defensively - most notably in the first round of the Australian Open in 2008, where Tsonga obliterated him off the court. Odds of 1.29 on Murray truly underestimate Tsonga, and the Frenchman stands a huge chance of levelling their H2H at 2:2 here.

NJ's Bets:

Djokovic to win 3-0 - 3.5pts @ 2.25 (Extrabet)

Soderling to beat Nadal 3-0 - 2pts @ 8.8 (Betfair)

Nadal to beat Soderling - 4pts @ 1.68 (Betfair)

Tsonga to beat Murray - 3.5pts @ 4.3 (Bet365)

Nishant Joshi