Andy Schooler backed over 39.5 games in Hubert Hurkacz v Jan-Lennard Struff at Wimbledon on Sunday July 5, and the price looked built for a long stretch rather than a quick finish. His angle on Mochizuki’s wider Wimbledon tips was simple: both men had served well enough to keep the scoreboard moving.
Hurkacz, Struff, and Mochizuki
The bet went at 4/5 for 1.5pts. Hurkacz was around 2/7 to win the match, but that short price did not erase the likelihood of a close fight on grass.
Struff brought 76 aces into the last-16 stage, while Hurkacz had 51. That service output pointed to repeated holds, and the total of 39.5 games sat high enough to suit a match that could stretch across four or five sets without needing many breaks.
Struff’s serving edge
Struff had already beaten Daniil Medvedev in straight sets, which sharpened the case for keeping him in the conversation even against the market favourite. He also had a grasscourt win over Hurkacz in Stuttgart in 2023, taken in three sets and built on 32 aces.
The pair had met in Dubai a couple of years ago as well, and that match had no breaks of serve, 41 aces and three tie-breaks. Those numbers line up with the same pattern Schooler was targeting here: long holds, short margins, and games piling up fast when neither returner can land a decisive break.
Felix Auger-Aliassime
Schooler’s Sunday July preview also pointed to 1pt over 12.5 games in the first set of Felix Auger-Aliassime v Alejandro Davidovich Fokina at 13/5. That pick sat on the same reading of the day’s draw: players holding serve early, with Felix Auger-Aliassime not having lost his own delivery and Alejandro Davidovich Fokina having gone through the last two rounds unbroken.
For the Hurkacz-Struff match, the wager was over 39.5 games, and the practical read is plain. A short-priced favourite can still be the wrong side of a long total when the underdog serves as cleanly as Struff had and when Hurkacz’s own delivery has already produced 51 aces. That is the match type the line was built for, and the scoreboard should tell the story quickly if the pattern holds.
