The withdrawal of Gael Monfils due to an Achilles problem allowed our 80-1 outright bet Dominic Thiem to progress to the semi finals at Indian Wells without striking a ball on Thursday.
He’ll now face Milos Raonic, who defeated a rather subdued and passive Miomir Kecmanovic in their quarter final, which made our 2-1 wager to Raonic a loser.
It was a curious performance from Kecmanovic, but still Raonic won only 10 more points in the match (hit 13 aces) and faced the same amount of break points as the Serb (three). Surely Thiem will give Raonic a lot more to think about in these conditions in the semis.
Friday’s quarter finals begin from 18:00 UK time and conditions look okay for today’s play, with some sun mixed with cloud, 23C temperatures and around 20kph wind speeds.
Karen Khachanov vs Rafael Nadal
What’s interesting about Khachanov this week is his decision to go back to his old Wilson racquet after playing (unsuccessfully) with a Head one up until this tournament in 2019.
The Russian has struggled for any sort of form so far this campaign after ending 2018 in fine style with his Wilson, but he explained that his contract with Wilson came to an end and he had a go with the Head one.
“I played with Head for seven years from the age of 12 until 19. Then I switched to Wilson for three years,” he said. “The contract with them finished and I wanted to try something else and see if I can improve with another racquet. I tested Head, because mentally I was ready for it. I tried for two to three months, including the pre-season.”
Clearly that didn’t go well and he’s back with a non-branded Wilson racquet for now and perhaps it’s all a mental thing, but it seems to be working and maybe that’s all it took for the Russian to get back on track.
He certainly played Nadal tough on North American hard courts in the latter half of last season, getting very close indeed to the Spaniard in their US Open clash, but it should be noted that they were quicker conditions than here and Nadal was struggling with a knee problem at the time.
But Khachanov has the weaponry to trouble Nadal when he’s on his game; it’s a question of whether conditions are just too slow and favour Nadal too much here at Indian Wells.
On the balance of probability I’d suggest that that is likely to be the case, but at these prices (Khachanov is bigger now than he was when they met in Canada last summer) the bet looks to be to side with Khachanov staying close on the scoreboard.
Khachanov played well enough against Isner to suggest that he’s feeling better about things now and I like either the set one overs or the total games for small stakes today.
All six of their last half dozen sets have gone to at least 10 games and over 9.5 games in set one or over 10.5 games for a riskier wager look the ones here, with Nadal often a slow starter.
The chances of an upset in the other quarter final seem rather slim, with my guess being that Hubert Hurkacz may well find himself in the same boat as Kyle Edmund, who looked overawed playing his first match against Roger Federer.
Hurkacz practiced with Federer in Shanghai last autumn and according to the Swiss maestro the Pole kept apologising every time he missed, leading Fed to conclude that Hurkacz was: “a very nice guy and he seems very sweet.”
‘Sweet’ he may be, but that doesn’t sound like the sort of approach I’d be looking for in a player hell bent on scoring a major upset and taking down a legend of the game.
Hurkacz is getting good results at the moment, but he found Kei Nishikori and Denis Shapovalov in less than their best form to put it kindly in rounds three and four and it’s hard to see him landing much of a blow on Federer here.
The Swiss veteran has also had a comfortable route through so far and looking at his record over the years he’s only ever lost one M1000 quarter final on a hard court to an opponent ranked 50 or worse.
That man is here this week: Fabrice Santoro (who’s currently in the Raonic camp) who beat Fed at the 2002 Madrid Masters when it was played on hard courts.
It’s hard to see anything other than a 2-0 Federer win in this one and we look set for another ‘Fedal’ battle in the semi finals.
Like yesterday it’s not a great day for value betting for me and just a small interest in the Khachanov match is all for me on Friday.
Best Bet
0.5 points win over 9.5 games in set one of Nadal/Khachanov at 1.91
