Wimbledon Day Eight Men's Tips: Federer could find Sonego tough opposition

Wimbledon Day Eight Men's Tips: Federer could find Sonego tough opposition

All of the fourth round matches take place in the men's singles on 'Manic Monday' at Wimbledon, and with a fantastic-looking schedule ahead, Dan Weston previews the action...

Djokovic shortening in outright market ahead of Garin clash

Saturday's matches generally went to form with Roger Federer defeating Cameron Norrie for the loss of one set in what was an improved display from the Swiss legend, while Daniil Medvedev needed to fight back from two sets down to eliminate Marin Cilic in five. This has influenced the outright market with Novak Djokovic actually shortening as favourite despite not having played since Friday - the world number one is now into 1.57 to be lifting the trophy on Sunday afternoon.

Djokovic, on paper, also happens to have the easiest fourth round match on the card, facing the Chilean clay-courter Christian Garin. It would be a real shock if he was to lose to Garin today, as illustrated by the market odds of 1.02 on a Djokovic victory this afternoon.

Zverev potentially vulnerable against improving Auger-Aliassime

In addition to Djokovic, Matteo Berrettini, Andrey Rublev and Daniil Medvedev are all priced as heavy favourites although bigger-priced at around the 1.20 mark for their fourth round matches. All three look fairly reasonably priced, although Berrettini perhaps looks slightly short for his match with Ilya Ivashka.

On the subject of matches being reasonably priced, that's a regular theme in the men's matches today with the market being pretty accurate, on the whole. I do think Alexander Zverev is slightly over-rated by the market at 1.32 for his match against the Canadian, Felix Auger-Aliassime, who is a very competent player who should provide a tough test to the fourth seed. Auger-Aliassime is 9-2 on grass this season and beat Federer in Halle several weeks ago, which reflects the danger he poses to Zverev.

Federer could be strongly tested by Sonego

Speaking of Federer, the match I want to focus on is his clash with Lorenzo Sonego. As mentioned earlier, Federer impressed more against Cameron Norrie on Saturday than he did against Adrian Mannarino in round one - a match he was extremely fortunate to win - and I think this has impacted the market's mindset for this match-up.

Federer is priced at 1.30, which is markedly shorter than the 1.55 ballpark starting price against Norrie, yet I'm not sure that Sonego is a downgrade in opposition from Norrie. The Italian has breezed through to this stage with the loss of just one set, albeit against pretty mediocre opposition, and he also reached the final in the Eastbourne warm-up event several weeks ago, and was only denied the title against Alex De Minaur via a final set tie-break.

Sonego also made a big breakthrough on clay this year, winning in Cagliari and reaching the final of the Rome Masters, beating Thiem and Rublev and then taking a set from Djokovic, and while clay form isn't particularly relevant to grass specifically, it's certainly a positive that a player is making general career progression.

My thought for the match is that Federer will probably just about get it done - he usually finds a way - and the crowd will be pretty biased in his favour as well.

However, Sonego should be no pushover and the even money on the Italian getting a 4.5 game head start in what should be a fairly serve-orientated match looks a reasonable spot. If you have the opportunity, you could also consider buying an extra game and taking +5.5 games at a lower price as well.