WTA Wimbledon Quarter-Final Tips

WTA Wimbledon Quarter-Final Tips: Niemeier's return game gives her the edge

Tuesday sees the women's singles quarter-finals get underway at Wimbledon, with current tournament favourite Ons Jabeur among those in action. Dan Weston discusses the betting...

Favourite Jabeur too strong for Bouzkova

Following the exit of Iga Swiatek on Saturday, Ons Jabeur is the tournament favourite on the Exchange at 2.80, with Simona Halep further back at 5.7.

At the time of writing, Halep still needs to get through her fourth round match, which will be played today (Monday) against Paula Badosa.

Before any thoughts of the title, though, Jabeur needs to get past the Czech, Marie Bouzkova, and is a strong 1.30 favourite to do so. After Jabeur's win over Elise Mertens on Sunday, the Tunisian has won all her matches at SW19 this year in straight sets. In fact, she has won her last 14 sets on grass. The last set she lost was in a tie-break.

That shows how good Jabeur has been on the surface this season, albeit against only two players ranked in the top 20, but you can only beat who is put in front of you, and she's done that with minimal fuss.

Bouzkova has impressed of late, particularly with wins over decent grass-courters Alison Riske and Caroline Garcia in the previous two rounds, but Jabeur has a big edge on service points won on the surface in particular.

Her strong serve - holding well over 80% on the surface in the last two years - should see her be too solid for Bouzkova. Jabeur is justified in being this market price.

Niemeier boasts stunning return numbers

Prior to this tournament, you'd have got long odds on Tatjana Maria and Jule Niemeier meeting in week two of Wimbledon, but the German duo have performed superbly to reach this stage.

Veteran Maria has long-term grass pedigree but still shocked Jelena Ostapenko and Maria Sakkari in the last two rounds, while the younger Niemeier has shown upside on other surfaces but hadn't shown much evidence of being a strong grass-courter until this tournament. However, she's rather eased her way through to this round, winning 57% of points competed and 65% of games.

Those numbers are far higher than Maria's, and where the difference comes is on return, where Niemeier's numbers in this tournament are stratospheric - winning over 50% of return points. This should give her the edge in this clash, and while it's not a huge lean, I like Neimeier's chances of making her first Slam semi-final.