Will the Big Four continue their uninterrupted march to the latter stages of Wimbledon 2017?

There have been few real surprises in the men’s side of the draw this year. The biggest shock was Stan Wawrinka’s 1st round exit, the 5th seed losing, without putting up much of a fight, in 4 sets to Daniil Medvedev. Kei Nishikori also left earlier than expected, following up a rocky 2nd round tie against Sergiy Stakhovsky with a defeat at the hands of Spain’s Roberto Bautista Agut. Beyond that, however, 8 out of the top 10 seeds are still in the competition, including Andy Murray, Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal.



Nadal has actually overtaken his peers to climb to the top of the Outright Index with a spread of 28-31 – where the winner gets 60 points, the runner-up 40, the losing semi-finalists 20, losing quarter-finalists 10 and losing last 16-ers 5. That’s just ahead of the Spaniard’s old nemesis Federer, who is at 27.5-30.5 (but has a fixed odds price of 12/5 to Nadal’s 11/4), while Djokovic is a bit further behind, at 25.5-28.5. As for Murray, the defending champion has slipped to a spread of 23-26 having been the only member of the Big Four to drop a set in the first 3 rounds.

All four men play this afternoon, with Murray and Nadal the first to the courts. The Scot takes on world no. 46 Benoit Paire, who is yet to face a seeded play this tournament. On paper the Frenchman shouldn’t cause too many problems for Murray, who heads into the 4th round fixture with a Match Supremacy spread of 15.5-18.5. Nadal will likely be similarly untroubled by his opponent, Luxembourg’s Gilles Muller, with a Match Supremacy spread of 15-18.

A bit later in the day Federer faces arguably the toughest test of the Big Four when he faces Australian Open semi-finalist Grigor Dimitrov. Like the Swiss maestro, Dimitrov is yet to drop a set, breezing past Diego Schwartzman, Marcos Baghdatis and Dudi Sela. Yet facing Federer is different level entirely, the legend fancied at a Match Supremacy spread of 14-17.

Finally Djokovic, who has so far avoided the indifferent form that has plagued his 2017, grapples with the unseeded Adrian Mannarino, the man who came back from 2-1 down to knock out Gael Monfils. The Serbian star looks like he has the easiest task ahead of him, with Spreadex offering a Djokovic/Mannarino Match Supremacy spread of 20-22.