Wimbledon Day 8: The favorites win

I got pretty much everything right in my Wimbledon Day 8 quarter-finals prediction for the ladies’ singles tournament.

All the favorites: Sabalenka, Barty, Pliskova and Kerber came away winning their matches in straight sets on day 8 of Wimbledon 2021. Looking at the tournament as a whole, this was the least exciting day with straightforward wins throughout.

In my quarter-final predictions, I thought that Ons Jabeur could upset Sabalenka, but if Sabalenka came out firing on all cylinders, she would win. That is pretty much what happened, Sabalenka looked fierce while Jabeur looked a little flat and had a hard time finding her footing in the match. 6-4 6-3 to Sabalenka.

Pliskova had the easiest pairing against Golubic and won 6-2 6-2, while Ash Barty made surprisingly short work of Tomljanovic 6-1 6-3. And it’s not like Angelique Kerber had to work much harder in her 6-2 6-3 win.

Not one single set to a tie-break or even 5-5. A pretty remarkably one-sided day of quarter-finals and not the best watch for the people who had bought tickets to the event. On the other hand, this should make for some exciting semi-final matches.

Wimbledon Ladies Singles Semi-final predictions

Barty vs Kerber – They have played five times on hard court and Kerber is leading it 3-2. She won their last encounter in the Hopman Cup in 2019, but they have never played on grass and Barty is a much-improved player. The seedings tell the story, Barty seeded as #1 and Kerber as #25, but Kerber will fight teeth and nails. It’s a tough one to predict, but I think Barty will win in three sets. Looking at the betting odds, you get around 1.50 on Barty and 2.75 on Kerber. That sounds like a pretty fair price to me.

Pliskova vs Sabalenka –  They have played twice and Sabalenka has won two hard-fought three-set matches, one on the grass in Eastbourne (2018). My prediction is that Sabalenka wins in three sets, but the bookies have Pliskova as the favorite at 1.50 approx, while Sabalenka gives you 2.65. A bit surprising, Sablaneka is the number 2 seed and leads the head to head. Do they know something we don’t?

My predictions lead me to a Barty vs Sabalenka Wimbledon final, which would be a great match-up. Let’s see how it goes in tomorrow’s women’s semi-finals.