Monday was a very good day indeed for those who took several of my list of potential underdog winners, with all three of my eventual selections winning (Ramos, Pospisil and Kukushkin), plus Chardy and Garin that I passed on in the end.
It looks a trickier day for value-seekers on Tuesday in Shanghai, but the two I think could possibly upset the odds or hold some value are Alexander Bublik, Vasek Pospisil and Albert Ramos.
Bublik takes on Felix Auger-Aliassime, who’s struggled recently and the stats that he’s posted in the last three months are miles away from what the youngster is capable of.
After a great start to his main level career earlier in 2019 FAA has held serve only 75.2% of the time and broken serve just 11.5% of the time in his last nine matches on all surfaces (he won only three points all match on second serve against Alexander Zverev last week).
A combined total of 86.7 is poor, but perhaps not that surprising when you consider he was playing Challengers this time last year and he’s not long turned 19 years old.
The layers still have him as favourite to beat Alexander Bublik though in a first career clash, but with the Bublik serve on fire at the moment it’s hard to see many breaks of serve in this match-up in these fast conditions.
In his last month on outdoor hard Bublik has won six of his seven matches and held serve 91.6% of the time, firing down 1.56 aces per game and breaking serve 15.8% of the time, so these are two players in very much contrasting form right now.
Bublik was very close to winning the Chengdu title on a quick hard court a couple of weeks ago and if we look at FAA’s performances so far against the big servers in my database he hasn’t yet found a way to break them too often.
FAA is 2-6 in completed matches so far against them (and one he did win was against a Nick Kyrgios who tanked it when he’d taken a tumble) and he’s broken them 6.7% of the time, playing 0.33 tie breaks per set.
I’ll take a chance on Bublik franking the form with an odds-against win here at 2.14 and a tie break or two seems quite likely as well.
The price of 1.87 isn’t quite big enough for me on a tie break in that match, but the 2.75 on there being one in Roger Federer’s opening match of the Asian swing against Albert Ramos looks better, as does the 5.20 on there being one in set one.
Federer has often started slowly at this tournament in recent years, which is no surprise given his lack of main level competitive action since New York and not since 2013 has he won his first match here in two sets without needing a tie break.
Last year he was taken the distance by Daniil Medvedev, while in 2017 he won 7-6, 6-4 against Diego Schwartzman. In 2015 he lost in three to Ramos and in 2014 he won in a final set breaker against Leo Mayer.
Ramos didn’t even get taken to deuce by Marin Cilic on serve on Monday and while he’ll surely get a tougher test from Federer I like the price of on Fed taking his time to get on top and being taken to a set one tie break.
The other one I like is to stick with Vasek Pospisil, who’s found a very nice level lately and his status as slight underdog is all about his head-to-head with Joao Sousa of 0-4.
Three of those four matches took place in slow conditions – on clay in Paris, slow indoor hard in Valencia and slow outdoor hard in Miami – while the one that was in lively conditions went to a final set tie break in Chengdu.
Four of the six sets they’ve contested on outdoor hard have gone to breakers, but the extra pace in these Shanghai courts leads me to side with the bigger game of the Canadian now that he’s seemingly fit and at a good level.
Sousa was lucky to get through round one against a faltering Filip Krajinovic and prior to that narrow win Sousa was 1-5 win/loss here in Shanghai and if Pospisil is strong enough right now to beat Schwartzman here he’s certainly more than capable of besting Sousa.
Best Bets
0.5 points win Bublik to beat Auger-Aliassime at 2.14
0.5 points win over 12.5 games in set one of Federer/Ramos at 5.20
0.5 points win Pospisil to beat Sousa at 1.92
