I said at the start of the week that this event is one that I look forward to the least on the calendar and the way it’s gone hasn’t surprised me much, hence the small number of bets and small stakes this week.
We lost our outright, Stefanos Tsitsipas, from a break ahead in the final set versus Daniil Medvedev on Thursday, while Cam Norrie had a bit of a shocker against Lorenzo Sonego, firing 30 unforced errors in two sets.
And to compound it all, the other one of two dogs I shortlisted, Fabio Fognini, won in straight sets at a big price after I’d put myself off backing him due to fitness concerns. All in all a typical week on the clay.
We’re set for another windy day in Monte-Carlo on Friday, with gusts of up to 28kph expected between 11:00 and 15:00 local time, which will make things tricky.
Rafael Nadal is used to playing in the wind in Mallorca and it’s hard to see Guido Pella doing a great deal against the Spaniard whichever method of play that Pella chooses to adopt on Friday.
Last year in the French Open he decided to eschew his usual measured style and go for all-out attack against Nadal and that didn’t work, but playing safe is unlikely to reap any rewards either.
Pella’s been playing pretty well on the clay this season, but I’m not sure what he can do in this match-up and unless Rafa has a bad day a heavy defeat seems likely for the Argentine.
I didn’t think that Daniil Medvedev would be in the quarter finals of a clay Masters Series event after watching him on the dirt last season when he was pretty poor, but he’s been much improved on it this week and may give Novak Djokovic something to think about in their fourth career meeting.
Djokovic has already beaten Medvedev on grass, outdoor hard and indoor hard, so it would be a surprise if the Russian got a first win over the Serb on clay and Djokovic looked a bit better against Taylor Fritz than he did against Philipp Kohlschreiber.
The Serb has lost only two of his last 28 M1000 quarter finals going back to the summer of 2013, but six of his last 10 of his Masters quarters on clay have gone to three sets.
The flat hitting of Medvedev may cause Djokovic problems, even on clay, and the wind could be a bit of a leveller too, but the layers make Medvedev more likely to win this on clay than they did on either grass or outdoor hard, which is odd.
The 4.0 on a Djokovic three-set win looks a possibility here on what seems a less than appealing betting day.
Dusan Lajovic played, in his own words, “for sure the best match of my life” in beating an error-prone Dominic Thiem on Thursday and I couldn’t bet on him to back that up in a Masters 1000 quarter final as favourite.
I think the layers have to make Lajovic slight favourite against Lorenzo Sonego and he has won 10 of his 13 main level matches on clay when priced up between 1.70 and 1.90.
Indeed, on all surfaces at main level, Lajovic has won 12 of his last 17 matches in that price range, so he’s been a decent one to side with as slight favourite in the last three years.
I’m never keen on backing players the next round after they’ve played a great match and got arguably their best career win the previous day though.
According to my records the last qualifer to make the semi finals was Richard Gasquet back in 2005 and Sonego has a fair chance of equalling that record on Friday, but it doesn't strike me as any betting value.
On that basis we should be fine backing Fabio Fognini, who said after his victory over Alexander Zverev: “It wasn't the best match of my career, but it came close.”
I don’t think it was close to Fognini’s best performances: the destruction of Andy Murray in Rome a couple of years ago when Murray was world number one springs to mind and while he was decent against Zverev the German still looks all over the place mentally at the moment.
Zverev went into passive pushing mode again from miles behind the baseline, allowing Fognini to do whatever he liked and we’ll see how he gets on against Borna Coric on Friday.
Fabio has a good record generally against ‘baseline grinders’ like Coric, winning 28 of his 45 matches against the ones on my list and he’s won eight of his last 13 matches against all opponents on all surfaces when priced between 2.0 and 2.30.
On the other hand, Coric is 15-6 at main level (6-1 on clay) when priced up between 1.70 and 1.90 and he may simply be in better physical condition than Fognini and be able to grind it out.
In short it looks a day where not a lot jumps off the page in terms of betting value, but in windy conditions I wouldn’t be surprised to see Medvedev at least press Djokovic.
Best Bet
0.5 points win Djokovic to beat Medvedev 2-1 at 4.0
