Tennis DFS plays for Monday's events (7/5)

We’re in the middle of tennis’ third Grand Slam of the year. This time, we move to grass courts at the historic lawn of Wimbledon. After the 2020 grass court season was canceled, it’s a wonderful sight to see tennis making its way back to Wimbledon. While names such as Rafael Nadal, Dominic Thiem, Simona Halep, and Naomi Osaka won’t be in their respective fields, it should still be a terrific two weeks, particularly on the women’s side in what is shaping up to be a wide-open field. On the men’s side, Novak Djokovic has a chance to tie Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer’s record 20 Grand Slam titles. Of course, grass courts are the quickest courts in the world, so expect short rallies, plenty of aces and tiebreaks.

This article will guide you through each slate, focusing on which players to build your core around, along with match predictions for the remainder of the slate and a power-ranked cheat sheet so you can see my confidence level in each tier. With that, let’s dive into Monday’s slate.

Novak Djokovic ($11,100)

This is one of those matchups where Djokovic can really rip his opponent apart. Garin gets more and more error-prone the longer the rally goes, and Djokovic will have no problem getting the extra ball off Garin’s groundstrokes. This matchup is -350 to end in straight sets, with a 27.5 total, which is “Nadal at Roland Garros”-type respect. Only Berrettini offers close to Djokovic’s upside, but he’ll need to hit both the ace and no double fault bonuses. Without much weaponry for grass courts, Garin simply doesn’t stand a chance, and I’ll gladly pay for a potential ceiling match out of Djokovic.

Madison Keys ($8,600)

At the moment, Keys should be viewed as the favorite to win her quarter. She lacked strength in opponent through two rounds, but in a near perfect outing against Elise Mertens, there’s some belief starting to build, and Keys’ game is getting better as we move along. Golubic’s run has been impressive, but she hardly survived Kudermetova, who like Keys, offers big ball striking, only Keys is a more advanced grass court player than Kudermetova. With a hold rate over 85% in seven grass court matches this year, Golubic has to avoid mistakes, as opportunities will be hard to come by. Expect some pressure on Golubic to hold her own serve as well, especially if Keys serves first in sets as scoreboard pressure will loom. I view this match as being lined correctly, and in a slate filled with potential coin flips, Keys offers a bit more safety.

Other match predictions (sets in parentheses)

• Hurkacz over Medvedev (5): Hurkacz has suddenly found form, and perhaps peak form, sitting on zero opponents breaks of serve this week, which is pretty impressive in a Slam. Medvedev is one of the best returners on tour, so expect that streak to end, but there’s reason to believe Hurkacz is capable of pulling off an upset. Medvedev was in a world of trouble to Marin Cilic, down two sets, before Cilic’s gas tank quickly faded. Tight one here.
• Berrettini over Ivashka (4)
• Rublev over Fucsovics (4): Fifth meeting of the year. All four previous have ended in Rublev wins, with Fucsovics taking just one set, which came at the 2020 French Open. Quicker conditions will favor Rublev, and Rublev is simply better than Fucsovics at the baseline.
• Federer over Sonego (3): Sonego’s form has been stellar throughout the grass court season, but this should be a case of teacher versus student. Federer has the experience edge here, but he may need to do this in three sets. He appeared to be running out of gas against Cameron Norrie late in the third, and it progressively got worse in the fourth set, but found one last push forward late in the set to end it.
• Barty over Krejcikova (2): Barty outclasses Krejcikova in virtually every area on grass. It all comes down to whether Barty is fit.
• Zverev over Auger-Aliassime (5): Auger-Aliassime looked a bit nervous early against Nick Kyrgios, before the Aussie’s injury worsened and forced him to retire. When the Canadian’s serve gets away from him, he can go down in a hurry, as we saw in the first set against Kyrgios. This one should play close most of the time, with both sporting hold rates of 90% or better on the surface. To me, Zverev is the better player in big moments (even when he’s not all there mentally), so I lean him in this matchup.
• Sabalenka over Rybakina (3): Power, power and more power. When these two met in Abu Dhabi, it was one big forehand after another. Both players were crushing the ball, and ultimately Sabalenka wore down Rybakina enough to advance. This matchup has huge ramifications, with Rybakina potentially advancing to her second straight Grand Slam quarterfinal, while Sabalenka could advance to her first, viewed as the favorite out of the bottom half of the draw. While Rybakina is in form, she was in Abu Dhabi as well, and still wasn’t good enough.
• Muchova over Badosa (3)
• Bautista Agut over Shapovalov (4): Bautista Agut is the better grass court player, and I trust his mentality to close out a match far more than Shapovalov, who is only playing in his second week of a Grand Slam for the second time. 
• Jabeur over Swiatek (3): Jabeur is the better player on grass courts, and again, I am yet to be convinced over her grass court level. Jabeur keeps the ball low, and while Swiatek is athletic enough to get low, we saw her struggle at times against Su Wei Hsieh, and Jabeur is far more capable with shotmaking than Hsieh. 
• Tomljanovic over Raducanu (3): I love Raducanu as much as anyone, but I think this may be the end of her run. What I will say is positive for Raducanu is she has managed to keep her unforced error count down, averaging under 20 per match through three rounds. I just worry that she hasn’t seen anyone with Tomljanovic’s serve before. There’s a possibility Raducanu is simply overwhelmed by the Aussie’s first serve, and never stands a chance in return games. Tomljanovic should probably be a bigger favorite than the market is offering, so I think there’s value here as there’s significant upside. We have yet to see Raducanu drop a set this week, so we don’t know how she’ll respond if down a set.
• Kerber over Gauff (2): Gauff has played terrific tennis over the last month, but will Angelique Kerber’s grass court prowess be too advanced for Gauff to handle? Gauff has seen a favorable draw to this point, and this will be a huge jump in the level of opponent, especially in Kerber’s current form. I have Kerber as a -140 favorite in this matchup, so we’re getting good value as a DFS play.
• Korda over Khachanov (4): Sebi Korda is quickly establishing himself as one of the better grass court players on tour. Not only is he winning, but he’s beating very good opponents in Alex De Minaur, Robert Bautista Agut, Kei Nishikori and Daniel Evans. Khachanov just turned in his peak effort against Frances Tiafoe, and everything we expected out of Tiafoe, Korda can do better.
• Samsonova over Pliskova (2): Despite Pliskova’s results, she has double faulted 17 times over three rounds. Her first serve percentage was above 68% in two of three rounds, while her average is around 60% this season. If that number regresses, Pliskova will be in trouble as Samsonova is the more in form player at the moment and will be the better mover in rallies.

Cheat sheet

(In order of preference)

Top tier: Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer, Andrey Rublev, Ashleigh Barty, Matteo Berrettini, Alexander Zverev
Mid-tier: Madison Keys, Karolina Muchova, Aryna Sabalenka
Value tier: Sebastian Korda, Ludmilla Samsonova, Ons Jabeur, Angelique Kerber, Roberto Bautista Agut, Ajla Tomljanovic
Hedges: Emma Raducanu, Paula Badosa