The first semi-final is within reach

It’s quite remarkable which players have made it to the quarter-finals at Wimbledon 2022. Top seeds Iga Swiatek or Anett Kontaveit were eliminated early. Defending champion Ashleigh Barty has ended her career. Naomi Osaka does not feel able to play successful tennis at the moment and add to that the Wimbledon winners Serena Williams, Angelique Kerber, Petra Kvitova or Garbine Muguruza, who have probably passed their zenith.

Therefore, the way was clear for new faces, whereby Ajla Tomljanovic and the quarter-finals of Wimbledon is not an entirely new combination, as the Australian was already in the last eight last year. She is 22 years after Jelena Dokic the first player from Down Under to play twice in a row in the quarter-finals at Church Road.

But while last year she was defeated by Ashleigh Barty, this year she wants to reach the semifinals first. To do so, she has to beat Elena Rybakina from Kazakhstan on Wednesday. The 23-year-old is one of the four remaining seeded women in the field. Based purely on the WTA ranking, the first prediction in the clash between Ajla Tomljanovic and Elena Rybakina would be for a win for the Kazakh

But it’s not that easy, and certainly not this year at Church Road, where some of the favourites have struggled in their matches. That’s why we think anything is possible in this quarter-final, especially as the Australian has had the tougher road to get here.

Ajla Tomljanovic – Statistics & current form

Current world ranking: 44
Seeded List Position: unseeded

Ajla Tomljanovic’s father is responsible for the travel and booking of hotel rooms. He obviously did not have much confidence in his daughter, because after initially booking only until last Friday, the stay had to be extended in the meantime. One could now speak of the lack of trust, but the Australian sees the matter more as reverse psychology and additional motivation.

Second Wimbledon quarter-final in a row

But she has also earned it at Church Road in her four matches so far, because the road to this quarter-final was a tough one. In the first round, the Australian had to deal directly with the seeded Jill Teichmann from Switzerland and defeated her clearly in two sets with 6:2 and 6:3. Basically, the second round against the US qualifier Catherine Harrison was the only mandatory win.

Otherwise, the Australian always went into the match as the underdog. This role seems to suit her, because in the third round Ajla Tomljanovic eliminated Barbora Krejcikova from the Czech Republic, the French Open winner of 2021. For the first time, the Australian had to go through three sets, but she showed that she was in good shape in the last 16.

There she faced Alize Cornet, who had reached the semi-finals in Bad Homburg last week and ended the winning streak of world number one Iga Swiatek in Wimbledon. The Australian was unfazed by that as well, winning 4-6, 6-4, 6-3. If she performs like that again on Wednesday, the odds on the underdog winning the match between Ajla Tomljanovic and Elena Rybakina seem more than interesting and maybe father Tomljanovic will have to go to the travel agency after all.

Elena Rybakina – Statistics & current form

Current world ranking: 23
Position in the seedings: 17

If you can be found at position 23 in the WTA ranking, then you are certainly allowed to compete at Wimbledon with some ambitions. Moreover, Elena Rybakina was even close to the Top Ten at the beginning of the year when she was ranked twelfth. Therefore, the Kazakh is a player who can be expected to do a lot in this quarter-final as well.

Without losing a set into the quarter-finals

This is the 23-year-old’s second time in a quarter-final at a Grand Slam tournament after the French Open in 2021. And it has to be said that she has entered this round of the last eight very confidently. So far, the Kazakh has not lost a single set, which is probably one of the reasons why the betting providers tested are predicting a win for the Kazakh in the match between Ajla Tomljanovic and Elena Rybakina.

However, it must also be seen that Elena Rybakina had perhaps the easiest path of all eight quarter-finalists. The top-seeded women in her sector already failed beforehand and so the Kazakh had to deal with the lucky loser Coco Vandeweghe in the first round. However, the 23-year-old had more problems than she would have liked at 7-6 and 7-5.

Then came the duels with Bianca Andreescu from Canada and Zheng Qinwen from China. There, too, she did not show any weakness, but usually only won the sets in the final stages. That was also the case in the round of 16 against Petra Martic, when Elena Rybakina took the first set 7:5. Things went a little easier in the second set at 6:3.

Ajla Tomljanovic – Elena Rybakina Direct comparison / H2H record

Only once have Ajla Tomljanovic and Elena Rybakina crossed paths on the WTA Tour. It was just over a year ago when the two ladies dueled at the Masters Tournament in Madrid. The encounter took place in the first round and the Australian probably won’t have fond memories of it.

Ajla Tomljanovic managed to keep the first set fairly open, but still lost 4-6. In the second set, the Kazakh played her best and defeated her opponent from Down Under 6:0. The Australian now has a score to settle with her rival, who is six years younger than her, at Wimbledon.

Ajla Tomljanovic – Elena Rybakina Tip

Generally, it is complicated to place the right bets in the women’s competition at Wimbledon this year. There have been many surprises. One of them is certainly Ajla Tomljanovic, who, however, already showed last year that she is a force to be reckoned with on grass and who now wants to follow in the footsteps of her predecessors Jelena Dokic and Ashleigh Barty at Church Road.

She has been completely convincing on the sacred grass so far, despite the uncertainties with the accommodation, and has bowled two seeded players and the Swiatek conqueror out of the tournament. Therefore, the road does not have to be over, even though the Kazakh is waiting for her, an opponent who has not yet lost a set at Wimbledon. In any case, we think that a bet on more than 2.5 sets in the match between Ajla Tomljanovic and Elena Rybakina should be pretty good.

We think you have to put the Kazakh’s successes into perspective because she simply hasn’t had the top opponents in front of her racket. Therefore, we see the Australian, unlike the bookmakers, even slightly in the favourite role and the value is clearly visible in the quotes on her victory. That’s why we decided to play the betting odds on a win for the Australian between Ajla Tomljanovic and Elena Rybakina.