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Fifth seed for Wimbledon 2015 Japan’s Kei Nishikori will open his campaign with a first round match up against the experienced Italian Simone Bolelli on court number one. Join The Roar for live scores of this match from around 11:30pm (AEST) following the Williams vs Gasparyan match.
Nishikori, despite being ranked as the fifth best player in the world currently has not actually ever performed that well in the biggest grand slam of them all. In fact, having attempted Wimbledon on five occasions he has only made it to the final eight once. One from five is not exactly a great strike rate. To add to that reading, he has been booted out before the third round on a further three occasions.
Coming into his sixth attempt at Wimbledon, things do not exactly look promising for Nishikori either. He has only played in one tournament since his quarter-final exit in the French Open which was in Halle two weeks ago. After winning three games against low key opponents, he had to retire in the first set against Andreas Seppi due to injury.
This makes it hard to assess his form, and with an injury complaint at a grand slam he already struggles at it is hard to see how he is going to go any further this time around.
Bolelli, meanwhile, has played two tournaments on grass, in London and Birmingham. He will be happy with some of the players he has been able to overcome in those tournaments, such as world number 38 Martin Klizan and world number 34 Adrian Mannarino. At the same time a loss in his last match to Marcus Baghdatis in convincing fashion won’t leave him pleased.
Wimbledon also happens to be Bolelli’s best grand slam, having made the third round on three separate occasions, something he has been only able to achieve once in all the other grand slams.
Interestingly enough, Nishikori and Bolelli met at Wimbledon last year in the third round. Before this first round match up today is their only meeting.
It was a classic encounter that went all the way to five sets, Nishikori eventually taking the honours. Bolelli is very experienced and not a bad player, so their first round match in 2015 will definitely not be a walk in the park for Nishikori as his fifth seed would indicate.
Betting odds are massively in Nishikori’s favour, paying just $1.22. It could be worth a punt on Bolelli who is a $4.00 outsider.
The winner of this match will have a second round match up against the winner of Brazil’s Joao Souza ranked 79th and Columbia’s Santiago Giraldo who is ranked 60th in the world heading into Wimbledon.
Prediction: Nishikori will be down on fitness and form and so will want to end the match quickly which I can’s see happening against Bolelli. Bolelli, whilst not in perfect form is a very experienced player and I expect he could pull off the biggest upset on the first day at Wimbledon.
Bolelli in five sets.
Join The Roar for live scores and commentary of this game from around 11:30pm (AEST) following the Williams vs Gasparyan match and don’t forget to leave a comment if you’re following along with the action!