Had the draw not been top-heavy in the first half, this could well have been a fitting final for the women’s draw this season. As it is, the heavyweight clash of the former SW19 champions goes off in the semi-finals and not too surprisingly Williams is going as the heavy favourite for the win. That’s not too surprising given the resilience which she has shown before and the fact that she has dominated Maria Sharapova throughout her career.
Sharapova hasn’t had a particularly great season by her standards, having fallen short a fair few times in the big events in 2015. She holds a 10-9 win/loss record in Grand Slam semi-finals so it is a big hit and miss with her at this stage. You have to stack that up against the 24-3 win/loss record that Serena Williams has in semi-finals of the majors. Sharapova, who will be back up to world number two at the end of the tournament, has actually never managed to beat Serena Williams when Williams has been ranked number one in the world.
From nineteen previous meetings between these two, Sharapova has won just the two matches. Unfortunately, those two wins came in the first three meetings between the two of them, all back in 2004, including Sharapova’s win over Williams in the Wimbledon 2004 final. So the Russian queen of the courts is now on a massive seventeen match losing streak against Williams. It’s understandable that Sharapova is a 4/1 underdog at Titanbet for the semi-final scrap.
Williams has been shaken and rattled at this year’s Wimbledon. She was so nearly ousted from the tournament by Britain’s Heather Watson, racking up 33 unforced errors in that game. She was on the ropes early against Victoria Azarenka in the quarter-finals too, having lost the first set. But as Williams does, she fought back to take the match to the Belarusian and managed to win through.
Whatever she seems to get herself in, whether it is a strong start and crushing opponents, of finding herself having to defend against an opponent serving out for a win over her, or fighting back from early losing positions, she seems to find a way. With a meeting against either Agnieszka Radwanska or Garbine Muguruza in the final, the Serena Slam is looking more and more probable right now and she is 1/6 odds on favourite to beat Sharapova.
Online betting site Titanbet are running a great Tennis Treble Insurance promotion at the moment. The bookmaker will refund your losing stake up to £10 if just one leg of your tennis is 3-fold lets you down. It’s a great way to try and save yourself some money and the minimum qualifying bet is £5. Max refund as a free bet token is £10 per bet.
