Debrief
I said last week that it was worth taking on top seeds Stefanos Tsitsipas and Alexander Zverev in Rosmalen and Stuttgart and both lost their first matches, opening up the draws.
And it was our 25-1 outright pick, Adrian Mannarino that ended up taking advantage when the Frenchman landed a first career title by beating Jordan Thompson in the final after earlier taking down Fernando Verdasco, David Goffin and Borna Coric and landing us a nice winner.
In Stuttgart we were a touch unlucky in the sense that I thought that the highly questionable fitness of Milos Raonic was worthy of taking on and he ended up beating our man Marton Fucsovics in the quarters and then retiring from the semis, but Fucsovics wasn’t playing well enough to win it anyway.
So, as is often the case, the start of the grass swing coincides with a nice profit boost and we move on to week two on the green stuff.
Conditions and trends
The newly named Noventi Open (for many years the Gerry Weber Open) in Halle is one of the very few grass events with a roof that often casts an awkward shadow over the centre court at certain times.
Indeed, the lack of sunlight in certain areas due to the roof often makes parts of the court softer and more slippery, which has led to a few tumbles over the years in Halle.
Roger Federer has dominated here over the years, appearing in 12 of the last 16 finals and it’s been a poor one for qualifiers, with none making the Halle final ever (one lucky loser did in 1999) and only one has gone past round two in the last six years.
Over at Queen’s Club they play on a ‘proper’ grass court that’s slick, low bouncing and quite quick, and that’s borne out in the high number of tie breaks here (52% of the matches in the last six years have featured one).
Number one seeds have a good record here, winning in three of the last four years and four of the last six and Feli Lopez in 2017 is the only unseeded winner since Scott Draper in 1998.
It’s another poor tournament for qualifiers, with none making the last eight since H-T Lee back in 2004.
Fever-Tree Championships
So, Queen’s Club is not usually the place for a big-priced winner, with Lopez the only big-prices success lately, but the draw looks rather more open this year, with the likes of Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray not taking part.
That leaves Stefanos Tsitsipas and Kevin Anderson as the top two seeds and as I suggested last week it may take a bit longer for Tsitsipas to find his mojo again after the French, while Anderson hasn’t played since March due to tennis elbow.
In Tsitsipas’ top half of the draw he has a tricky starter against Kyle Edmund, who hasn’t found grass to his liking so far in his career, with the pace and low bounce not suiting his style of play.
It’s still a tough opener for the Greek though and I’m of a mind to risk Jeremy Chardy in that first quarter of the draw, where Nick Kyrgios, Adrian Mannarino, Grigor Dimitrov and Felix Auger-Aliassime all have claims.
Kyrgios looks all over the place mentally at the moment, (but that’s not to say he couldn’t win) while Dimitrov is still having issue with his shoulder and Mannarino and Auger-Aliassime are both in finals on Sunday and may be fatigued (Mannarino, certainly).
Chardy was great in the early part of the grass swing last year and made the semis here a year ago, losing out to nemesis Novak Djokovic 7-6, 6-4.
Chardy is worth half a point each-way at a big price of 75-1 on his form of last year and assuming he’s over a back problem that forced him out of Rosmalen last week. He’s entered the singles and doubles this week, so I’m assuming he’s in better shape.
Quarter two of the draw also looks very competitive, with two injury prone sorts in Juan Martin Del Potro and Milos Raonic favoured to clash in the quarter finals, but Raonic in particular is a risky punt given his ongoing fitness problems.
His back looked to be an issue all week in Stuttgart before he finally pulled out of his slated semi final against Auger-Aliassime, so I couldn’t back the Canadian this week on that basis.
Del Potro has often found quick, early-season grass a problem, with just a 5-4 record at Queen’s Club, and his best showings on grass have come in slower conditions at Wimbledon.
Feli Lopez looks past his best now and surely this is beyond him, while it looks too fast for Denis Shapovalov to me and Marton Fucsovics doesn’t have the confidence at the moment it would appear.
Alex De Minaur might be a dark horse in this quarter, but he didn’t seem fully fit to me in Rosmalen after a lot of injury problems and I prefer a big hitter in these fast conditions to a more reactive player like De Minaur.
In the bottom half of the draw Marin Cilic has a strong record here of 29-9 win/loss with two titles (one a tad fortunate), but his price of 8-1 looks short given that he’s really struggled for form this season after a problem with his knee.
It looks a tough ask for him to win the title and the two contenders as well as Cilic in this third quarter appear to be Lucas Pouille and Daniil Medvedev, who clashed in Stuttgart last week.
Medvedev was in a foul mood that day and that may be due to a lack of fitness after a groin and back injury interrupted a promising clay swing for the Russian and 7-1 seems rather short on him.
Pouille looked good in Stuttgart, but couldn’t match the bludgeoning power of Jan-Lennard Struff, who was almost unplayable, but Anderson and Cilic aside there’s nobody of that sort of raw power in this half of the draw.
Anderson surely won’t be ready for a title tilt, while Stan Wawrinka has never found the pace and low bounce of grass to his liking, with no semi finals since 2014 and a very average 29-29 record in all.
Cameron Norrie is another struggler on grass, while Gilles Simon’s best days are surely behind him now, so Dan Evans and Frances Tiafoe come into the reckoning at big prices.
Evans has started the grass swing in fine style at Challenger level, but he’s just 7-12 at main level on this surface and he’s currently still in Nottingham, where it’s been raining all week long.
Tiafoe has shown some promise on grass and he could be good on this surface in the future, but he’s still very inconsistent on all surfaces and disappointed again last week in Rosmalen.
He faces grass court legend Nicolas Mahut in round one and surely the glory days have gone now for Mahut at the age of 37, but he could still surprise a few this week, although he hasn’t made a quarter final at Queen’s since 2007 when he lost in the final to Andy Roddick.
Noventi Open
For once Roger Federer looks to have a tricky draw in Halle, with the man that beat him at the US Open last season, John Millman, up first, followed by either Jo-Wilfried Tsonga or Benoit Paire and then one of Taylor Fritz, Roberto Bautista Agut, Richard Gasquet or Peter Gojowczyk.
That’s a tricky quarter and the Swiss veteran will need to be on it from the start, but backing against Federer in Halle has been a bad idea over the years and no one player stands out for me in the top half of the draw to take him on with.
Borna Coric beat him here in Halle in the final a year ago, but as I said in my preview the other day against Mannarino in Rosmalen I’m not convinced that Coric is the real deal on grass.
His leaky forehand was his downfall again in Rosmalen, but his draw isn’t too bad at all, with Jaume Munar first up and either Joao Sousa or Hubert Hurkacz next.
Hurkacz is interesting on the form he’s shown on hard courts this season, but he’s very inexperienced on grass, so we’ll see how he goes, but I wouldn’t be shocked to see him go deep at a big price if he finds his game on grass.
Gael Monfils is another one that doesn’t really have the game for grass, but he could easily make the quarters or semis if he can stay on his feet, which he often doesn’t in Halle.
But I think it’s in the bottom half where there are some interesting contenders and if we’re assuming that Matteo Berrettini, who impressed in Stuttgart is a bit tired, there may be chances for Jan-Lennard Struff and Steve Johnson in this half.
Struff looked very good in Stuttgart until he ran into Berrettini in the semi finals and on that form I’d fancy him to beat Laslo Djere and Karen Khachanov and make the quarters, where he may meet Berrettini again.
At 30-1 I’m happy to take a small chance on Struff, while the final quarter of the Halle draw looks wide open as well, with Alexander Zverev still worth taking on at the moment.
Zverev, despite the change of surface from clay to quicker grass, still can’t buy a second serve point, winning only 28% of them against Dustin Brown, although 14 double faults didn’t help that tally.
He just isn’t playing with anything like the confidence that he has done in the past and in these conditions Johnson can cause a surprise at 100-1.
This one might be out of the reckoning by lunchtime on Monday as he’s got Philipp Kohlschreiber first up, but Kohli is in poor touch right now, having lost as a 1.09 chance in Paris and a 1.33 shot last week in Stuttgart.
Johnson was narrowly beaten by Kohli in Stuttgart in 2017 in a final set tie break, with just two points separating them, but with Kohli seemingly in one of his funks right now and approaching his 36th birthday I’m happy to take a chance on Johnson at that price.
He’s shown his aptitude for grass on many occasions and if he beats Kohlschreiber this bottom half of the draw looks very open to me.
Karen Khachanov for me isn’t well suited to low bouncing grass, while Guido Pella is 6-10 win/loss on grass and David Goffin is still too inconsistent, as he showed yet again versus Mannarino last week.
Conclusion
At Queen’s Club I’ll have a small interest in a couple of Frenchman, Jeremy Chardy at 75-1 and Lucas Pouille at 33-1, while over in Halle the bottom half looks very interesting and Struff and Johnson will be my big-priced picks there.
Best Bets
0.5 points each-way Chardy to win Queen’s at 75-1
0.5 points each-way Pouille to win Queen’s at 33-1
0.5 points each-way Struff to win Halle at 30-1
0.5 points each-way Johnson to win Halle at 100-1
