Wimbledon 2010 Halle And Queens Results And Their Implications

There’s an historical relationship between Halle/Queens titles and success at Wimbledon.

It goes without say that the Wimbledon warmups in Halle and London are not to be compared to Wimbledon itself.  However what should be pointed out is that the winners from Halle and Queens have very often gone on to produce stellar results at the All England Club.

Take a look at the following historical results from the past 10 years for the 3 grass court tournaments.

2009

Wimbledon: Roger Federer
Halle: Tommy Haas
Queens: Andy Murray
(Federer did not contest either Halle or Queens)

2008

Wimbledon: Rafael Nadal
Halle: Roger Federer
Queens: Rafael Nadal

2007

Wimbledon: Roger Federer
Halle: Tomas Berdych
Queens: Andy Roddick
(Federer did not contest either Halle or Queens)

2006

Wimbledon: Roger Federer
Halle: Roger Federer
Queens: Lleyton Hewitt

2005

Wimbledon: Roger Federer
Halle: Roger Federer
Queens: Andy Roddick

2004

Wimbledon: Roger Federer
Halle: Roger Federer
Queens: Andy Roddick

2003

Wimbledon: Roger Federer
Halle: Roger Federer
Queens: Andy Roddick

2002

Wimbledon: Lleyton Hewitt
Halle: Yevgeny Kafelnikov
Queens: Lleyton Hewitt

2001

Wimbledon: Goran Ivanisevic
Halle: Thomas Johansson
Queens: Lleyton Hewitt

2000

Wimbledon: Pete Sampras
Halle: David Prinosil
Queens: Lleyton Hewitt

In 6 of the last 10 years the Wimbledon champion has won either Halle or Queens.  That took place in 2008 when Nadal won Wimbledon/Queens, it happened between 2003-2006 when Federer won Wimbledon/Halle, and it took place in 2002 when Hewitt won Wimbledon/Queens.

There are 4 years in the last 10 where the Wimbledon champion did not win either Halle or Queens: 2000, 2001, 2007, and 2009.  However in 2007 and 2009, years where Roger Federer won Wimbledon, the fact that he did not win Halle or Queens is more than likely due to the fact that he did not contest either events as he would have been favored had he participated.

That leaves just 2000 and 2001 to look at and they are genuine counter examples.  In 2000 Pete Sampras won his final Wimbledon title even though he fell in Queens to Lleyton Hewitt in the final.  In 2001 Goran Ivanisevic came out of nowhere to win Wimbledon even though he fell in the round of 64 at Queens to 194th ranked Cristiano Caratti.  The Sampras final loss is nothing of note as it was a title match to a quality player.  With the Ivanisevic loss to Caratti you do have to wonder how the big server went from a Queens first round outhouse to a Wimbledon penthouse in less than a month but that’s what he did.

But from all this one statement can be made: provided that the eventual champion actually contested either Halle or Queens (which eliminates 2007 and 2009), then the eventual Wimbledon champion has won one of those two ATP events in every year since 2002 inclusive.

Now heading into Wimbledon 2010 we have the following scenario:

2010

Wimbledon: winner to be determined
Halle: Lleyton Hewitt
Queens: Sam Querrey

Both Hewitt and Querrey won their respective grass court titles and no one can claim that it was because of a weak field.  Halle wasn’t jam packed with stars but Roger Federer was in the field while Queens had Rafael Nadal, Andy Murray, and Andy Roddick.

That doesn’t mean that Hewitt or Querrey will win Wimbledon this year but it does imply that they may be underrated when one looks at their odds.  Hewitt is +5000 (50/1) in the outright winner’s market with SportingBet while Querrey is +6600 (66/1) with BoyleSports.  There is no way that either of those players should be considered that bad and depending on their draw they may each be able to win their quarters.

Those who prefer to sprinkle capable longshots instead of pounding overrated favorites should be tapping Querrey and Hewitt because their titles are NOT flukes.  However either one of them is still unlikely to win Wimbledon and the best betting angle on either of them may be to wait for the draw, assess it, and then possibly take them to make the semis or to look for middle round matches where they may incorrectly be considered underdogs.

Francesca Schiavone just won the 2010 French Open as something like a 75 to 1 longshot.  Was that out of the blue as John McEnroe and all would have you believe or did she give us a hint of a forthcoming deep run at Roland Garros when she won Barcelona 2010 on clay in April?

Last year Tommy Haas won Halle and then made an unexpected run in Wimbledon to the semis and Querrey or Hewitt may likely be doing the exact same thing.