The good start to the week for the daily advice continued on Tuesday when our bet of the day, Ernests Gulbis, won at slight odds-against, while those who took Yannick Maden would also have enjoyed a nice winner.
Open Sud de France
The main event of the day in Montpellier comes when French veterans Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Gilles Simon go head-to-head for the 12th time in their careers, with Tsonga leading the series 8-3 currently.
Tsonga has by and large proved too powerful for Simon in these clashes, holding serve 88% of the time and breaking Simon 23.8% of the time in their 11 meetings.
He’s even created more break chances than Simon (0.55 per game compared to Simon’s 0.42) and in their only career clash here in Montpellier Tsonga held serve 93.5% of the time, but that was way back in 2010 (he’s held serve 92.6% of the time in all his career matches at this event).
Simon doesn’t have a great record in Montpellier (14-11 win/loss) and knowing how the cerebral Simon thinks deeply about the game he’ll most likely think himself out of this one before he gets on to the court given the head-to-head.
Radu Albot vs Philipp Kohlschreiber
Albot had a better 2018 than Kohlschreiber on indoor hard at main level, winning five of his eight matches and posting a hold/break total of 97.6, while Kohli went 4-5 and 97.7.
On that there’s little between them and Kohli had to go to a deciding set twice against lowly-ranked Hungarian opposition in Davis Cup indoors last weekend.
Prior to 2018 Albot was pretty poor indoors and Kohli is 9-2 win/loss on indoor hard when priced up as a 1.40 to 1.50 favourite in his career and I’m tempted here by the 2-1 to the often slow-starting Kohlschreiber at a price.
Albot defeated some good players indoors last season (Isner, Herbert, Fucsovics) and he’s won four of his last six main level matches on this surface when priced up as underdog.
The Moldovan has only lost in straight sets on indoor hard at main level as underdog twice in his last 11 matches (going back to 2015) and the likes of David Goffin and Kei Nishikori are among those failing to put him away in straights, so I do feel there’s an opening here in siding with Albot somehow.
The +1.5 sets on Albot or over 2.5 sets both appeal, as well as the option of taking Kohli to win it in three.
Sofia Open
The last time that Fernando Verdasco was priced up as a sub-1.10 favourite at main level he lost – to Benjamin Becker over five sets on clay – and I wonder how much he’ll be pushed by Bulgarian qualifier Alexandar Lazarov?
We saw Matt Ebden (whose weak indoor hard record I mentioned) struggle to put away another lowly ranked local Adrian Andreev and Lazarov will be very much up for the fight here, having survived match points to qualify.
Since causing a big shock by winning the title in Sofia last year Mirza Basic has had a shocker, failing to win back-to-back main level matches in his 17 tournaments since lifting the trophy here.
Indeed, he’s lost 11 of his 12 matches at main level and hopefully our 60-1 outright shot Martin Klizan will be in the mood to further the punishment on the out of form Bosnian.
Perhaps a return to Sofia will inspire him and he’s been looked upon kindly by the organisers, who’ve given him a Wednesday start after a long journey back from Davis Cup in Australia.
Klizan’s beaten Basic three times from three and the latter is 5-8 win/loss (lost four of last five) against lefties currently ranked in the top-100, so despite Klizan coming from Davis Cup duty on clay he should be winning this after a few days to practice.
I was toying with the idea of backing Marton Fucsovics over Andreas Seppi, who’s coming straight from Davis Cup duty on grass in India, with the Hungarian holding an impressive set of stats indoors at main level.
Fucsovics’ hold/break total from his 12 matches is 109.5 (30% breaks), but I think that’s misleading, as much of it came from beating Jared Donaldson 6-0, 6-1 in Basel in 2017.
However, Seppi is 7-2 win/loss when priced up as a slight favourite (between 1.80 and 2.0) indoors at main level and I don’t trust Fucsovics in tight situations if it came down to a few points here and there.
There’s also very little in it in terms of service points won on this surface and I’ll pass on this one.
Most of Mikhail Kukushkin’s best tennis tends to come in Davis Cup and that was the case once again this past weekend when he put the Sousas to the sword on indoor hard at ‘home’ in Kazakhstan.
At tour level though he’s hit and miss and his results in tournaments following a Davis Cup weekend are (perhaps understandably) poor and he’s never won back-to-back matches in any tournament the week immediately after a Davis Cup weekend.
Indeed, he’s lost his next main level match the last five times in a row after Davis Cup duty, but perhaps the reduction of Davis Cup to best-of-three will help Kuku in that regard.
If I had more confidence in Laslo Djere in these conditions I might be tempted to back him here, but he’s 1-6 win/loss and has broken serve only 7.8% of the time (held only 68.8% of the time) in his seven main level matches indoors.
Best Bet
1 point win Albot +1.5 sets to beat Kohlschreiber at 1.71
