It’s been a predictably tricky opening to the clay swing, but we managed to find a fairly comfortable underdog winner on Wednesday when Henri Laaksonen took down Ryan Harrison in Houston.

Laaksonen could probably have done it easier than he did in the end, but it’s been a poor week on the outrights, with Reilly Opelka beaten from a set up by Casper Ruud.

Moving on to Thursday then and there’s one bet I like in Casablanca.
 

Juan Ignacio Londero vs Jiri Vesely

I’m not at all convinced that the right player has been made favourite for this one, with Vesely’s win over a woefully out of form Fabio Fognini looking like it’s tempted the layers to side with the Czech.

By his own admission Vesely has been struggling and after the Fognini match he revealed: “I’m coming back from a few injuries, so I still need to build my confidence.”

That’s a fair assessment, given that Vesely last made a main level quarter final last summer on grass in Antalya and his last two matches heading into Marrakech were losses to opponents ranked between 150 and 260 in the world.

If we look at his last 10 matches on clay at main level (4-6 win/loss) we find that his stats are very average indeed, with 76.4% holds of serve and 20.1% breaks (96.4 total) and that’s some way behind his opponent today.

Londero has won eight of his 12 main level clay matches in the past year and posted 80.9% holds and 26% breaks for an impressive (albeit from a quite small sample) total of 106.9, so his current form is much better than Vesely’s.

The Argentine has also played very well against left-handers of late, winning 10 of his last 11 (all on clay) at all levels, including beating Guido Pella and crushing Federico Delbonis on his way to the Cordoba title.

Vesely served very well against Fognini, but the 83% of first serve points he won that day was the most he’s achieved since beating James Ward in two breakers in Dubai qualies in February and he’s unlikely to repeat that level (in his last 50 clay main level matches Vesely averages 70% first serve points won).

Granted, Vesely has played well here in Marrakech in the last few years, but is that and a win over a poor Fognini enough to have him favourite here?

Not for me and I’ll take Londero at these prices.

Elsewhere in Marrakech, surely Philipp Kohlschreiber will be the one to end the run of Pablo Andujar, who would probably have lost to Federico Delbonis had the Argentine not failed with numerous chances to win set one of their encounter.

This one is priced up more or less as it should be based on their head-to-head, but when you take fatigue into account on the part of Andujar this is a match that Kohlschreiber should be winning.

Andujar has racked up 25 sets of clay court tennis in the last two weeks and Kohlschreiber should have the legs on him here, but since when has Kohli ever done what you expect him to?

I remember backing him to beat Andujar at the 2015 French Open and he led 4-2 in the final set when rain came and when they returned the next day Kohli lost all four games and the match.

Benoit Paire has a 7-2 win/loss record against the ‘net rushers’ in my database and really should be beating Pierre-Hugues Herbert on clay, while Alexander Zverev will probably be too strong for Jaume Munar, who’ll fight hard, but I doubt it will be enough.

Over at the US Men’s Clay Court Championships Sam Querrey has won seven of his eight career matches against Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, but GGL won the only one to be played on clay in Geneva back in 2016.

GGL was favourite that day though and Querrey will most likely get through here, though by his own admission: “I’m feeling like I am playing a good match and then not.”

The one underdog who may be worth thinking about in Houston is Santiago Giraldo, whose level these days is rather hit and miss, but on a good day he could well be up to beating Jordan Thompson on this surface.

Two-time defending champion Steve Johnson should be too strong for Daniel Elahi Galan, while I’m not at all convinced about the fitness these days of Janko Tipsarevic, who faces Cameron Norrie.

Norrie should be winning that one in conditions he should find okay for him, but nothing seems worthy of a bet in Houston to me.

Best Bet

0.5 points win Londero to beat Vesely at 1.97