Andy Schooler takes a look at the most eye-catching matches on Saturday’s order of play at Wimbledon 2025 – and picks out his best bets for them.
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Centre stage
Iga Swiatek v Danielle Collins (2nd on Centre Court)
While Jannik Sinner and Novak Djokovic both play on Centre Court on Saturday, this contest looks highly likely to be the most competitive of the three.
Collins is a renowned fighter whose exuberant celebrations don’t go down well with everyone but her commitment cannot be questioned and she can make life difficult for the former world number one.
We correctly predicted a long match for Swiatek in the last round when she had to fight back from a set down to beat Caty McNally and something similar here would be no great surprise.
It took eventual champion Barbora Krejcikova to beat Collins here last year and she’s cruised through her two matches so far this time around.
Swiatek us up 7-2 on the head-to-head (none on grass) but while there have been some blowout wins in that sequence, many matches have been tight affairs. In three of the last four, Collins has won a set and she was victorious in their most-recent meeting, stunning the Pole on her favourite clay surface in Rome less than two months ago.
Let’s take the American to at least keep this close by backing her on the game handicap where she gets a 3.5-game start.
Show time (2nd on Court 2)
Alex de Minaur v August Holmgren
In a tournament of shocks, the story of Holmgren may have gone under the radar but the 27-year-old’s run through qualifying to the last 32 is quite something.
He came from match point down to beat 21st seed Tomas Machac in the last round (repeating the trick from the final round of qualies) and afterwards spoke about being “pleasantly surprised” to come through qualifying before almost immediately contradicting himself by saying: “I am not surprised, as I have great faith in my serve and my game.”
The serve has certainly been key and has been causing opponents plenty of problems. There have been 55 aces across the two rounds so far, that number helping ensure he has been broken only once. That’s on top of the 58 aces served in qualifying.
In a match where the Dane is out at 8/1 to land the upset, a serve-based play has to be the betting angle for this showcourt match.
OK, De Minaur is one of the best returners in the game but he’s not seen the Holmgren delivery before and it’s not hard to see the Australian taking a while to get his eye in.
A first-set tie-break has occurred in both of Holmgren’s main-draw matches so far (there were no break points in either set) and that can be backed at around 5/2 by ‘dutching’ each player to win the first set 7-6 (De Minaur is 9/2, Holmgren 9/1).
However, perhaps the best bet is to back the first set to reach 3-3 after six games – that’s a 20/21 shot.
Around the grounds
Marin Cilic v Jaume Munar (2nd on Court 18)
Cilic delivered for this column when he took down title hopeful Jack Draper in the previous round and he can repeat the trick on Saturday.
The big-serving Croat, who warmed up for this tournament by winning on the ‘second division’ Challenger Tour in Nottingham, looked in fine form against Draper, with his serve and crunching forehand punching holes in the fourth seed’s defence.
Munar’s game is fairly lightweight in comparison and while he did upset Alexander Bublik in round one, he may struggle to contain Cilic if he plays at the same level, for he was mightily consistent with his groundstrokes on Thursday, particularly in terms of depth.
I expected the former US Open champion to be shorter than 8/13 to win this and while that may be too short for many, taking him on the game handicap, where he gives up 2.5 games, gets us to 5/6.
