Tuesday wasn’t the best of days for our bets, with Lucas Pouille being comfortably despatched by Andrey Rublev and Reilly Opelka dropping serve right away in the only game of his match against Alex De Minaur before the rain washed that one out for the day.
At least we got Marton Fucsovics through to round two (just about) on a day where some unexpected results occurred, not least Jose Statham beating Hyeon Chung from 1-5 down in set one at what must have been a huge price.
It’s another busy day on Wednesday at the ASB Classic and Sydney International, with 14 matches on the card across both venues.
Only Andreas Seppi (unless Opelka wins on Wednesday) was a winner from my shortlisted underdogs on Tuesday and day three’s card has very few true underdogs, with eight favourites priced up between 1.55 and 1.70 and a further three between 1.82 and 1.90.
On that basis there should be some tight contests around today and a lot of pick ’ems and I’m focussing on Auckland today.
Leonardo Mayer vs Matteo Berrettini
The 2-0 head-to-head in favour of Berrettini may have had a bit too much of an influence over the pricing of this match, as it’s one that Mayer is more than capable of winning.
The Argentine pretty much always tails off at the end of the season and is much stronger at the start, as he showed again in 2018 when he didn’t win a single match after Winston-Salem in August.
He has done well in this part of the year though, making the semis in Sydney a few years ago and he did OK last year too, culminating in a last-16 showing at Indian Wells.
It was in that year-end tail off that Berrettini met Mayer last in Beijing in October and that was also Mayer’s first match since retiring at the US Open, while Berrettini had come through qualies in that event.
The other time that the pair clashed was on clay in Bastad last summer when Mayer had a shocker (we backed him outright that week and he lost first up, making the final the week after instead) in a first match on clay since the French Open.
There should be no such excuses for Mayer this time, with a very good display against Steve Johnson under his belt already this week in Auckland and on paper there’s less than 1% between this pair on their outdoor hard court hold/break stats at main level this past year.
So, the price of 2.43 on Mayer is fair value in a match-up where both men like to attack and Mayer could easily come out on top on the day.
Elsewhere in Auckland, David Ferrer has been put in as favourite against compatriot Pablo Carreno Busta, who hasn’t played since October, and on the form Ferrer has shown so far this year that looks the right decision.
We’ll see in a few days’ time if Ferrer’s assertion that: “I can't play more than two matches; my fitness is not the same; I have great pain,” is accurate or not.
I like the idea of backing ‘no tie breaks’ in our outright hope Cam Norrie’s clash with Joao Sousa, with Norrie having played only 0.07 breakers per set on outdoor hard at main level this past year and Sousa having played 0.08 per set in his 10 career matches in Auckland.
Fabio Fognini has compiled some fine stats on outdoor hard this past 12 months at main level, with a hold/break total of 108.9 in his 25 matches (18-7 win/loss) but in his opening match of the year he may be vulnerable to the flat hitting of Peter Gojowczyk in these conditions.
Fogna couldn’t cope with it in quick conditions on clay in Geneva, but consistency is a big issue with Gojowczyk, who can be either very good or pretty awful.
Philipp Kohlschreiber has a fine record in Auckland (24-7 win/loss and 110.3 hold/break total) and in his last 10 main level matches against lefties he’s 7-3 (113.4 hold/break total) so I’m not sure I fancy Ugo Humbert at a price as short as 2.48 to beat him.
It could certainly be argued that with a 101.9 hold/break total in his 15 main level outdoor hard court matches (8-7 win/loss) in the last 12 months on this surface that the German is on the slide at 35 and Humbert is improving fast, but it’s not for me at those odds.
Taylor Fritz has a decent record against big servers (6-5 win/loss versus the ones on my list on outdoor hard) and I wouldn’t be surprised if he were to catch top seed John Isner cold in their clash.
Isner hasn’t made it past the last eight in Auckland since 2014 and he started the year very slowly in 2018, so Fritz has his chances in that one potentially.
Finally, Tennys Sandgren and Marco Cecchinato look likely to play a tie break, given their stats on this surface, with Cecchinato playing 0.33 breakers per set in his last 12 matches at main level on outdoor hard.
Given that Isner played 0.34 per set in his last 12 months that’s a very high number for Cecchinato, who struggles badly to break serve on this surface (12.3% breaks) and Sandgren has played 0.27 per set himself, so odds against about a breaker is decent.
Best Bet
1 point win Mayer to beat Berrettini at 2.43
