Wimbledon 2014: Grass skills of Becker to prevail against Young

Grass-loving Becker can heap more pain onto Young

We get underway at Wimbledon 2014 on Monday morning and tennis expert Sean Calvert is back to select his best bets in the men's first round draw...

Play begins on Monday morning at the All England Club in the men's singles of Wimbledon 2014.

And after getting a nice boost on Saturday when Roberto Bautista-Agut landed my 20-1 tip in Rosmalen we approach the third major of the year in good shape.

Three of my 'five potential first round upsets' are in-play today, which takes care of the best outsiders on Monday's card and the other best bets that aren't long odds-on have taken a bit of hunting for today.

Andy Murray is one such odds-on shot and at 1.051/20 you won't be getting rich off the defending champion today against David Goffin, but the Brit should come through this one 3-0 at around 1.4640/85, which is more palatable.

Similarly, Novak Djokovic should ease through against grass-avoiding Kazakh Andrey Golubev, who has never won a main draw match at Wimbledon.

But the major players are all so well known to the layers that value is hard to find on the top guys, but the likes of Tim Puetz are less so and it could be worth siding with the enthusiasm of the German today against Teimuraz Gabashvili.

Puetz qualified for his first ever main draw at a major by beating former Wimbledon junior champion Marton Fucsovics and decent grass courter Ruben Bemelmans and he'll be very much up for his major debut at around 2.30pm on Court 7.

Gabashvili on the other hand, has rarely gone well on grass and skipped his second match in Halle due to a knee injury before withdrawing from Rosmalen with the same issue.

The Russian has a 1-5 record in main draws at Wimbledon and hasn't won a match here since beating Ramon Delgado back in 2010 and I can't see him being too enthusiastic about facing a motivated opponent while carrying an injury himself.

Another player with a poor record on grass, to put it kindly, is Donald Young, who hasn't won a match in either the main draw or the qualifiers here in six attempts and faces a really experienced grass courter today.

The Don faces Benjamin Becker, who came close to beating my tip Bautista-Agut in the Rosmalen final on Saturday and who has a 64% win ratio on grass over the years.

The veteran German is still serving big and has the grass court smarts to really flummox poor old Young, who did manage a win on grass last week in Eastbourne, but it was against an atrocious James Ward, who for whatever reason was no sort of opponent on the day.

Against left-handers such as Young on grass Becker has a 9-2 record, with the losses coming against Fernando Verdasco 9-7 in a fifth set here back in 2006 and to Jurgen Melzer three years later in another tight one.

This will be the first career meeting between Young and Becker, but surely the grass smarts and big serve of Becker will be too much for the inexperience of Young on this surface.

Recommended Bets
Back Puetz to beat Gabashvili at 1.75/7
Back Becker to beat Young at 1.574/7