It was another bizarre day in Buenos Aires on Saturday, but for once a bit of fortune smiled on us and our outrights when Casper Ruud came back from the brink of defeat in astonishing fashion against Juan Ignacio Londero.
With Londero utterly dominant and serving for a 6-4, 6-4 win the Argentine inexplicably produced a choke for the ages and proceeded to win just one more game in the match from that point.
Ruud didn’t even have to do much either, as Londero sprayed the ball everywhere, and not even a lengthy delay due to illness in the crowd was enough for Londero to compose himself.
The other piece of (hopefully) good luck we had was the expected withdrawal of Diego Schwartzman after his hamstring injury incurred in the quarter finals against a choking Pablo Cuevas and Schwartzman also pulled out of Rio next week.
So, all that’s left for Casper Ruud to do now is to beat the luckiest of lucky losers in Pedro Sousa in Sunday’s final and with Sousa another one struggling with injury it would be hugely disappointing if this went wrong.
Sousa has got to by far the biggest match of his life after initially losing to Facundo Bagnis in qualies and then winning a couple of tight ones in the main draw before Thiago Monteiro choked against him in the last eight.
Sousa had the trainer out a few times and had his left calf heavily strapped up, which Monteiro didn’t handle at all well and then, of course, the 66-1 shot didn’t have to play his semi final after Schwartzman quit.
So, it’s a very good situation for us now, with Ruud rated a 1.14 chance to land his maiden title and us a big-priced winner, but will it really be that simple?
When have big-priced outright wins ever come that easily in finals?
Very rarely, and Ruud, who opened up at 33-1 with Unibet, which was even bigger than I was expecting when I wrote the preview, might be affected by nerves here.
I talked in that outright preview about how poorly the Argentine players have done here under the weight of expectation from the home crowd and we saw the devastating effect it had on Londero yesterday.
Ruud isn’t Argentinian of course, but this is only his second main level final and the title match before that Houston loss to Cristian Garin was a defeat to one Pedro Sousa in the Braga Challenger final in 2018 as a 1.55 favourite.
It was a rainy old day in Portugal when Sousa bagelled Ruud and ended up winning in front of his home fans and perhaps it’ll be Ruud that has the support this time after cleverly winning the crowd over yesterday by rushing to hand the stricken spectator some water.
Unless Sousa is still struggling badly with that injury it seems unlikely to me that Ruud will just turn up and win this easily, so I’ll have a point on Sousa at what seems a rather generous price of 5.80.
Hopefully Ruud’s bigger game will prevail, but we’ve seen some strange situations occur in Buenos Aires this week and anything is possible.
The other two finals today are, quite honestly, of little interest to me and I’m moving on to what look like they could be two or three very tasty events in week seven, but briefly…
Gael Monfils is looking to win back-to-back main level titles for the first time in his career and he’s around the 1.55 mark to achieve an improbable (given his fitness record) second title in seven days.
As ever, there’s no point in getting involved in a Monfils match unless there’s a clear edge and I’m not sure a below par (he’s been coughing all week) Felix Auger Aliassime is a big enough price against a Monfils who seem to be focusing for a change at the moment.
FAA has been great on serve all week, holding 91% of the time, but Monfils is the best returner that FAA has faced this week (Gael’s created 0.79 break chances per match) and the other issue of course is that Monfils is probably feeling it as well after a lot of tennis lately.
I wouldn’t touch it and over in New York the two guys that had/have appalling semi final records both managed to win their semis in straight sets on Saturday.
Kyle Edmund played his best match for some time against my man Miomir Kecmanovic, while Andreas Seppi was too strong for Jason Jung and so it’ll be part six of Edmund/Seppi on Sunday.
The Brit has had the best of this career series, winning four of their five clashes (three on outdoor hard and one indoors) and as well as a poor record in semi finals, Seppi is 2-6 in completed matches in main level finals.
Indeed, they met only a matter of weeks ago in Auckland in round two when Edmund won 6-3, 7-6 and the Brit’s heavy forehand has been very effective in this match-up, with Edmund holding serve 88% of the time in their five meetings.
Seppi has held only 77% of the time and Edmund has won almost 10% more of his second serve points (56%) than Seppi (46.8%).
Edmund is a 1.43 chance here and that’s the same price he was in Auckland and I’m not tempted in backing Seppi here.
Best Bet
1 point win Sousa to beat Ruud at 5.80 (only if backed Ruud outright at the start at 25-1 plus)
