The seeds for Wimbledon 2016 were released on Wednesday with defending champion Novak Djokovic the top seed in the men’s singles draw. He will be opposite of Andy Murray when that draw gets released on Friday, June 24th. However, one of the middle seeds in the tournament will surely garner a lot of focus in terms of who he ends up near in the draw. Nick Kyrgios is considered one of the favorites to win Wimbledon 2016 despite being ranked outside of the Top 10.
Betting odds are what you have to look at to get information on general opinions regarding a player’s chances to win a tournament. Depending on the sportsbook, Kyrgios is about the 5th favorite to win Wimbledon 2016 (Stan James). However, that he’s generally on the short list for favorites certainly doesn’t mean that the ‘average’ opinion on Kyrgios is correct.
The Australian received the 15th seed at the All England Club, not a bad spot to be in as it guarantees that he won’t have to face a higher-ranked player ahead of the fourth round. However, Kyrgios enters Wimbledon as a very over-rated player in my opinion.
His post-French Open warmup to Wimbledon certainly was not successful. Since losing to Richard Gasquet in the third round at Roland Garros, Kyrgios has only played in one match. Last week at the Aegon Championships he lost in the first round to eventual finalist Milos Raonic in three sets. That gives the Aussie one recent grass-court match ahead of Wimbledon, which isn’t exactly where you want to be right now.
Kyrgios, who was listed as the 47th most marketable athlete with SportsPro earlier this year, has been described as “Tennis’ self-styled bad boy making good on his talent.” In reality, Kyrgios is terribly unproven on tour, especially when it comes to winning late-round matches in any tournament. He hasn’t made the semifinals of any major, and that’s unlike nearly all the players ranked above him at Wimbledon, except for David Goffin and Roberto Bautista-Agut.
You could attribute the lack of deep runs in majors to youth, however, if you start talking like that then the question remains: why is Kyrgios considered a 5th favorite? Kei Nishikori and Dominic Thiem are both clearly better. Furthermore, I even have more faith in Tomas Berdych still.
Kyrgios is entering his third Wimbledon, and he’s an impressive 7-2 in his previous two appearances. He has wins against Rafael Nadal, Richard Gasquet, and Milos Raonic at the venue. Some think that the Australian might be built for grass.
But when the draw comes out for Wimbledon 2016, a 15 seed can expect to share a path to the quarters with a Top-4 player. Good luck for Kyrgios would see him share a quarter with either Roger Federer, the three seed, or Stan Wawrinka, the four seed. Those two players are not at their peaks right now, and Kyrgios might be able to upset either one of them. However, if you saw the Raonic match at the Aegon Championships you saw Kyrgios seemingly self-destruct at some points in the contest, in a way that is uncharacteristic of the true contenders at Wimbledon.
I think the best chance for the Aussie to go deep at the All England Club is if he shares a quarter with Wawrinka and then either Kei Nishikori or Richard Gasquet. If Kyrgios shares a draw to the quarters with Djokovic or Murray then I’d be shocked to see the Aussie in the final eight.