We’ve managed to turn things around this week after a slow start and two winners on Friday helped in that regard when Stan Wawrinka defeated Denis Shapovalov and Pablo Cuevas covered the handicap against Dominic Thiem.
Outright interest is still strong, with Sam Querrey a 1.25 favourite now to make the New York final, so it’s been a pleasing few days.
Saturday’s semi finals begin in Rotterdam at around 14:00 UK time when Daniil Medvedev takes on Gael Monfils in a repeat of their semi final last week in Sofia.
Medvedev was a comfortable winner last week and while the lack of pace in this year’s Rotterdam courts might help Monfils and hinder Medvedev a little it didn’t look the best of match-ups for the Frenchman in Sofia.
The low bounce makes it tough to counter the very flat ball of Medvedev and it will be interesting to see how Monfils approaches this after last week, but the layers aren’t keen on Lamonf’s chances of turning it around.
They make him a 3.25 chance, having priced him at 2.39 last week, but in these conditions I wouldn’t be shocked if it’s a bit closer than the Sofia match.
Kei Nishikori vs Stanislas Wawrinka
I’m a little surprised at the pricing of this one, with Nishikori looking rather short at 1.45 against a quality opponent who’s coming back towards his best form and who defeated the Japanese star as a similarly priced underdog in their last encounter.
Wawrinka was a 3.0 shot when he beat Nishikori in straight sets in Cincy last season and given that Nishikori has lost five of his last nine main level semi finals and three of the last six he started favourite for I’m not too keen on this price today.
Conditions in Rotterdam suit the Wawrinka game and it looks like the confidence that he now has in his fitness compared to most of the last 12 months is showing in his overall level.
He should have beaten Denis Shapovalov easier than he did when a set and 4-1 up yesterday, but that win has improved his career stats in Rotterdam to 8-1 win/loss and 107.9 hold/break total (89.5% holds).
Nishikori has looked good so far this week (other than in the early stages of his first match of the tournament), but he very often does impress against opponents that are overmatched, such as Marton Fucsovics on Friday, and when the opposition is tougher it’s a different story.
He would probably point to his win in the Brisbane final over Daniil Medvedev as a turning point after losing his previous nine finals in a row, but for me the jury is very much still out on him when it comes to big matches against decent opposition.
He’s lost far too many of them tamely for me to consider backing him at this price against this opponent (Wawrinka also beat Nishi as slight underdog in their 2016 US Open semi final) and I definitely prefer the big match temperament of the Swiss.
Moving on to the New York Open and our 11-1 outright hope Sam Querrey should be beating the qualifier Brayden Schnur, who came through a real struggle against veteran clay courter Paulo Lorenzi in two hours and 39 minutes on Friday.
That’s on top of a final set win over Steve Johnson the previous round and the Canadian has now played a dozen sets this week already, so it would be very disappointing if Querrey lost this one.
Querrey is 8-1 win/loss at main level on indoor hard when priced as a sub-1.30 favourite in his career and 77-19 all-time on all surfaces at main level in that price bracket (lost two of last 19, both in final set tie breaks).
Assuming he wins, which is never a given with Querrey, he’ll face either old foe John Isner or Reilly Opelka and the price of 1.49 on the opening set going to a tie break tells you all you need to know about this one.
I’m tempted by under 12.5 games in set one at 2.60 here, despite their four tie break sets against each other in Melbourne last month, with Isner likely to want to avoid breakers against a clone of himself, who won three of those four tie breaks at the Australian Open.
He was taking returning very aggressively against Jordan Thompson on Friday and Opelka is sometimes a slow starter in matches, but it’s too much of an unnecessary risk to be backing against a breaker with these two.
In Buenos Aires I’d expect Dominic Thiem to be too much for Diego Schwartzman on slow clay, but if he’s got any energy left after a very busy two weeks Guido Pella will fancy his chances against Marco Cecchinato.
The Italian by his own admission hasn’t played well so far this clay swing and he was slightly fortunate that Roberto Carballes Baena was struggling with an abdominal injury on Friday.
The same could be said of Pella in the sense that he was a set and 5-3 down to Jaume Munar and saved four match points before the Spaniard’s body let him down.
Pella has played 21 sets now in 11 days and his last five in a row have all gone to deciders, but he’ll be happy at being underdog here, and 2.80 on Pella is worth thinking about if betting in Buenos Aires today.
Best Bet
0.5 points win Wawrinka to beat Nishikori at 2.80
