We got the tight, serve dominated, affair we expected between Feli Lopez and Lucas Pouille on Tuesday, with only one break of serve for each man in a full three sets, but sadly for us the one break of the Lopez serve came in the first game of the match.
They did play a tie break, but not in the opening set, while there were two in the Alexei Popyrin versus Milos Raonic clash and those who trusted Dustin Brown would have enjoyed a nice underdog winner there, as he took down John Millman in two sets.
The weather looks set to be okay in Stuttgart on Wednesday, but rain is forecast up until lunchtime in Rosmalen, so there’ll be a delayed start there if the forecast is correct.
Of the eight matches on the card across both venues on Wednesday I could make cases for at least five of the underdogs, with plenty in with chances in my view.
Alex De Minaur has been struggling with injury in recent months and hasn’t won back-to-back matches at any tournament since the Australian Open, having returned in his worst part of the season on clay.
Now that De Minaur’s opponent, Andreas Seppi, has shaken off the funk of another weak clay swing himself with a tight win over Thomas Fabbiano on Tuesday the Italian is certainly good enough still on his day to beat ADM in the Aussie’s first match on grass since Newport last year.
Cristian Garin vs Robin Haase
But I’m happy to take Haase as underdog against Garin here, with the Dutchman having won four of his last five matches on grass when priced up between 2.0 and 2.50.
Playing at home Haase gets a lot of support here, with the orange-clad fans making themselves heard in Rosmalen in a tight win over the dangerous Ugo Humbert in round one.
Ever the enigma, Haase has won some good matches on this surface, and beaten some very good grass court players, including the likes of Karlovic, Mahut and Gasquet, and he may well simply have too much grass court nous for Garin here.
The Chilean has had a fine season on the clay, but he’s very inexperienced away from the red dirt, with his win over Salvatore Caruso in round one here being Garin’s first ever victory away from clay on the main tour.
Indeed, that was only his fourth such match and the one prior to that was a drubbing by David Goffin at the Australian Open earlier this year when he won four games in total.
Garin’s confidence is clearly much higher now than it was then, but he’s still got loads to prove away from clay and on early-season grass Haase should be able to take Garin’s time away.
The Dutchman is more than competent at the net and has good variety to his game on this surface (the low slice should trouble Garin) – it just depends how he’s feeling on the day much of the time – but I’d expect a performance from Haase here and he looks a lively underdog.
The other one I quite like in Rosmalen is to side with Taylor Fritz in some way against Borna Coric, who surprised everyone by winning Halle last year as a 50-1 shot having had a poor record on grass up until that week.
Fritz is serving really well these days and he’s held serve 82.3% of the time so far in 2019, which includes 17 of his 27 matches having been played on clay – and he faced Djokovic twice and Nishikori twice in that clay run.
Not only that, but he’s won more points on first serve this year than Coric (75% to 74%) and won 51% on his second serve, which is very good considering how many matches he’s played on clay and who he faced.
His record on grass isn’t the best, but neither was it on clay until this season, and I’d expect that record to improve if he keeps serving as well as he has been, with that delivery allowing him to play the first strike tennis he enjoys.
A dozen of Coric’s 20 best-of-three set matches this season have gone to a decider and he’ll probably have to go long again if he’s going to win this tough-looking grass opener, with over 2.5 sets at 2.30 the bet.
Jordan Thompson can sometimes go well on the grass and isn’t without a fair shot against the inconsistent Frances Tiafoe, but I prefer Haase and Fritz as the dogs in Rosmalen.
In Stuttgart I’m hopeful that our outright Marton Fucsovics can produce against Nikoloz Basilashvili, whose game hasn’t transferred too well to grass so far in his career.
Lucas Pouille has a perfect 3-0 record against Daniil Medvedev, but all of those came in 2017 and 2018 when the Frenchman was favourite and this could be a chance for the Russian to get on the board in this series.
Pouille was a little fortunate to edge past Feli Lopez despite winning six fewer points on Tuesday and I’d expect Medvedev to come through here, but it’s a tough opener for the Russian and three sets seems likely here.
Best Bet
0.5 points win Haase to beat Garin at 2.38
0.5 points win over 2.5 sets in Fritz/Coric at 2.30
