FELICIANO LOPEZ is thriving at Wimbledon this year and looks a value bet, at 9-4 with Skybet and Bet365, to humble former champion Lleyton Hewitt in the quarter-finals of the men’s championship on Wednesday.
Lopez is the first Spaniard to reach the last eight since 1972 and it has been no fluke, with the 23-year-old brushing aside Marat Safin and Mario Ancic in the past two rounds.
The left-hander saw off both of those top ten seeds in straight sets and was particularly impressive in seeing off Ancic, making just nine unforced errors and serving just one double fault.
He has met Hewitt, a best-priced 2-5, just once before - when beaten in straight sets at last year’s US Open - but the No 26 seed seems well suited by grass and it could be a mistake to read too much into that.
Hewitt is, of course, no slouch himself on grass, but he has not progressed beyond this stage at Wimbledon since winning the title in 2002. The Australian has shown glimpses of his best this tournament, but he did not have much to spare when beating Taylor Dent on Monday and the fact that Jan Hernych was able to take a set off him in the second round also points to him being far from invincible.
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Roger Federer and Andy Roddick should justify short-priced favouritism in their respective quarter-finals, while David Nalbandian is fancied to prove too strong for Thomas Johansson. The Argentinian showed great resolve to come from two sets down to beat Andrew Murray in the third round before beating Richard Gasquet 6-4, 7-6, 6-0 in round four.