Tsitsipas vs Tiafoe Prediction: Wimbledon Betting Picks

Tsitsipas vs Tiafoe is among the headline matches for the first day of the 2021 Wimbledon tournament. A French Open finalist earlier this month, Tsitsipas will look to make another deep run in a major. But standing in his way is an American in Tiafoe that is not an easy out. In this round of tennis picks, we take a closer look at Tsitsipas vs Tiafoe and give our best bet for this opening day match at the All England Club.

Stefanos Tsitsipas is playing arguably the best tennis in the world right now by anyone not named Novak Djokovic. But, fresh off of a French Open final appearance in which he relinquished a two-set lead, Tsitsipas will have to answer questions about his ability to perform on grass. In his last appearance at Wimbledon in 2019, Tsitsipas lost in the first round of the tournament to Thomas Fabbiano. And he faces a tougher test in the first round against Tiafoe.

Tsitsipas is 17-11 lifetime on grass, with his 60% win percentage being his worst win rate on any surface. And with Tsitsipas not having played any tune-up events prior to this year’s Wimbledon, Tsitsipas has gone two full years without playing a competitive match on grass. Coming off of a successful tournament on his best surface, it is possible that the Greek is being overvalued coming into Wimbledon.

Frances Tiafoe, meanwhile, hasn’t exactly set the world on fire on grass in his own right. After winning a grass court Challenger level event the week after the end of his French Open campaign, the American has gone 2-2 at the tour level on grass. Tiafoe was beaten in straight sets against the only top-50 player he’s faced on grass this year in Denis Shapovalov, which may not bode well against the superior Tsitsipas.

Working in Tiafoe’s favor is the fact that he has historically been a tough out at Wimbledon historically. Only once in Tiafoe’s career has he been beaten in straight sets during a main draw match at Wimbledon, with that coming against Sascha Zverev in 2017, before Tiafoe was old enough to buy a beer in the United States. His last two exits from this tournament have come in five-set matches.

Tsitsipas vs Tiafoe has been played three times prior to this matchup at Wimbledon. Tsitsipas has won all three of those matches, with all three of those encounters coming on hard courts. It should be noted, though, that one of those matches came under different rules at the NextGen Finals, while one came at the Hopman Cup exhibition event. The two have not met since December of 2018.

Stefanos Tsitsipas has been the vastly better player since he and Frances Tiafoe met in the 2018 NextGen Finals. But Tsitsipas still has a lot to prove on grass, and Frances Tiafoe has proven himself more than capable of holding his own on this surface. Expect this match to go over the 34 game total and for Tiafoe to, at the very least, make Tsitsipas work for an appearance in the second round.