We’re indoors for the rest of the season now and if history is any guide the place to start looking for underdog winners in week 42 of the season is in Moscow at the Kremlin Cup.
In the last seven years 39% of the betting underdogs have won here and only once in those seven years has there been fewer than 10 underdog winners in the tournament (in 2014).
Stockholm and Antwerp can’t compare with those numbers, with Stockholm producing a below average 28% of underdog winners in the last seven years and Antwerp’s three years on the tour has produced 33% underdog winners.
The first two years in Antwerp were good for underdog bettors, but last year there were only four all tournament.
There are some peculiar tie break stats this week as well, with the slow conditions in Antwerp having produced 45% of matches that feature at least one tie break in its three years on the tour and that’s more than the quicker Stockholm (39%) and the often slow Moscow (33%).
Moscow was faster last year than previously and produced over 50% tie break matches and we don’t know what conditions will be like there this year as it’s moved to another new venue.
There are only three matches on the schedule on day one at the Kremlin Cup and our 50-1 man Cristian Garin faces a tricky opener against Andreas Seppi, who’s done well here down the years, with a 14-5 win/loss mark.
Seppi has ridden his luck a little bit here over the years, winning eight of his 11 tie breaks played in Moscow, having played a breaker in six of his last eight completed matches here.
Garin’s been in good form on the hard courts lately and I doubt it’ll be too quick for him here, so I’m hopeful of a win for our man there.
Adrian Mannarino (the 2018 Moscow runner-up) faces a quick rematch with Damir Dzumhur (the 2017 Moscow champion) after Mannarino beat Dzumhur comfortably on slow (effectively indoor) hard in Zhuhai a few weeks ago.
Much depends on how slow the conditions are this time in Moscow in that one, but the one I was going to take today was Juan Ignacio Londero against the veteran Czech player Lukas Rosol.
Londero has faced some very good opposition this hard court summer and autumn so far: Andy Murray, Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer, Matteo Berrettini, Sam Querrey and Jordan Thompson among them.
And he’s still emerged from all of his matches on hard courts from the end of July to now with a respectable hold/break total of 95.1.
That’s better than anything Rosol has achieved at main level lately, with Rosol winning just two of his last 15 matches on all surfaces against players ranked in the top-60 in the world.
In his last 10 matches on indoor hard at main level his service hold/break total is only 89.9 (76.1% holds/13.8% breaks) and on all surfaces that total is 92.7 in his last 10 matches (83% holds/9.7% breaks).
Londero is over the 100 mark (101.3) in his hold/break total for the season on all surfaces and he’s certainly been facing a much higher calibre of opponent than Rosol, who hasn’t faced a top-75 ranked player on the main tour for a year.
I’d have gone with Londero at the opening show of around evens, but 1.73 is too short now.
Moving on to Antwerp and if there was one player who represents the definition of the word ‘streaky’ on the ATP Tour it’s Peter Gojowczyk, who’d lost 12 of his 14 previous matches before making the ATP 500 Washington DC semi finals as a lucky loser.
Since then, Gojowczyk has lost his next eight and he hasn’t beaten a player ranked inside the top-89 apart from during that Washington run since Indian Wells back in March.
He’s also lost nine of his last 11 main level matches against left-handers such as Guido Pella, but guess who was one of the two lefties that Gojowczyk beat in that run? Yes, of course, it was Pella.
That was in Auckland on outdoor hard at the start of this season and he’s won both hard court meetings with Pella, so the German is certainly a possibility as underdog on Monday, but he’s got to get it right.
If Gojowczyk plays somewhere approaching his best it’ll be a tough one for Pella to overcome, but it’s impossible to have any confidence in Gojowczyk bringing that level based on his recent performances.
I was toying with the idea of taking a set one tie break in the match between Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Lorenzo Sonego at a tempting 3.75, with both men likely to be tricky to break in these conditions and neither being the best returner in the world, but I’m not sure I trust Sonego not to get broken early.
In Stockholm, our man Reilly Opelka faces an opponent who’s actually won all four of his career matches against the big servers in my database, but I’m not sure that will help the Italian today.
Stefano Travaglia beat Matteo Berrettini three times on clay at Futures level between 2015 and 2016 and also took down Feli Lopez in Toronto last season, so maybe this won’t be the easiest of openers for Opelka.
But beating a then-679th ranked Berrettini on clay and a Lopez whose only set win that hard court summer was against Mohammed Safwat isn’t much preparation for Opelka on indoor hard.
Travaglia is 1-5 win/loss all-time at main level on indoor hard and lost to Antoine Hoang last week indoors in Mouilleron-Le-Captif and prior to that to Maxime Janvier in Orleans, so it would be a surprise if Opelka slipped up here.
The interesting one for me here is Janko Tipsarevic against Corentin Moutet, whose results have slipped back since he played so well and caught the eye at the French Open and Wimbledon.
Since Wimbledon, Moutet lost four straight first round matches (favourite for two of them) and has only won back-to-back matches (no more) once at any level.
He was beaten by Alexandre Muller last week in Mouilleron-Le-Captif (as 1.403 favourite) and before that to Yannick Maden in Nur-Sultan and Hoang in Orleans and Hugo Grenier in Cassis (as 1.455 favourite), so he’s not exactly in the best form.
Question is what has Tipsy got left in the tank in his last month or so as a professional?
He wants to go out in Davis Cup in Madrid on indoor hard in November, so I can’t imagine he’s here just for a bow and a wave to the crowd before playing another tournament or two and then off into the sunset.
His issue has been stamina and energy levels after starting well against decent opposition, leading Denis Kudla at the US Open before fading and a set all with Radu Albot in Los Cabos, yet being bagelled in the third.
He was also a set all with Kevin Anderson at Wimbledon, 2-2 with Grigor Dimitrov at the French, and he beat Yoshihito Nishioka at Wimbledon, so the level is decent, but the fitness not.
Given his lack of stamina and that Moutet has lost nine of his last 12 matches I like the 2.70 about Tipsy winning set one for small stakes and better than the now-short 1.73 about Londero.
Again, the price has shortened to 2.55 now from 2.70, but worth a go on day one, I feel, with Moutet 0-1 lifetime at main level on indoor hard (a 6-1, 6-1 loss to Filip Krajinovic in Metz last year) and usually more comfortable on the clay.
Best Bet
0.5 points win Tipsarevic to win set one at 2.55
