We made a small profit on Monday in Monte-Caro when our 2.23 chance Jan-Lennard Struff came back from a set down to beat Denis Shapovalov after Nikoloz Basilashvili had lost in three to Marton Fucsovics.
It was another day of sparse, but not terrible pickings for underdog backers, with four more in addition to Struff winning, two of which were in matches involving qualifiers, which weren’t priced up at the time of my preview, unfortunately.
Radu Albot’s win over Aljaz Bedene was largely anticipated by the market, but the price on Martin Klizan to beat Federico Delbonis would certainly have been of interest, while Diego Schwartzman won 12 of the last 13 games from a set and 0-3 down against Kyle Edmund to complete a remarkable comeback.
We’re expecting a cool, cloudy day with a fair chance of rain on Tuesday, so conditions are likely to be on the slow side.
Of round one’s remaining matches Gilles Simon’s often-brittle confidence may have taken a dent by a thrashing from Pablo Andujar in Marrakech and Alexei Popyrin has been in good form.
On paper this should be a good match-up for Simon against an opponent that likes to attack on a court that’s hard to hit winners on, but 1.41 is a bit short on Simon nonetheless.
Taylor Fritz often performs well as big underdog, winning at least a set in six of his last eight matches when priced up as a 4.0 underdog or bigger.
That includes taking sets off Roger Federer, Stan Wawrinka, Dominic Thiem (twice), Alexander Zverev and beating Marin Cilic, so he seems to play well against the elite players.
He’s often guilty of weak showings in small tournaments, like last week in Houston in a tame loss to Marcel Granollers, but the American may well fancy this against Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, who suffered a loss from 3-1 up in the final set against Benoit Paire in Marrakech on Saturday.
Tsonga’s last match in Monte-Carlo was a loss as a 1.18 chance against Adrian Mannarino and much shorter in-play, as he was a set up that day, and while I don’t expect Fritz to win on clay I wouldn’t be surprised if he kept it close.
Fernando Verdasco should be beating Pierre-Hugues Herbert in these conditions, but the new dad’s mind may well be elsewhere at the moment and he’s lost seven of his last 13 when priced up between 1.60 and 1.70, so he’s hardly reliable.
Adrian Mannarino and Cameron Norrie are both confidence players lacking in any confidence at the moment and while Norrie should be the winner in these conditions it’s hard to back him with any faith just now.
But the one that looks the pick of the prices in the round one clashes is Juan Ignacio Londero, who we backed last week, but were unlucky, as he suffered a stomach complaint in Marrakech.
Londero was sick that day against Jiri Vesely, but he seems to have recovered well, as he’s breezed through qualies here and having beaten Felix Auger-Aliassime in their only career clash on clay and with those two matches under his belt here in Monte-Carlo, he’s a tempting price.
Statistically, it’s Londero that has the advantage in the 14 and 13 matches respectively that this pair have played on clay at main level, with the Argentine posting a hold/break total of 105, compared to the 100.6 of FAA.
And the slow conditions will make it tough for the young Canadian to hit the winners that he likes to do, plus, of course, he hasn’t played on clay for a few months.
The recent successes have made FAA a tad short for this match at 1.46 and Londero +3.5 games at 1.84 looks the bet today.
Another lively underdog is Marco Cecchinato, who had an easy time of it on Monday when Damir Dzumhur retired early on and the Italian, who has posted some very good stats in the last 12 months on clay, is likely to prove a tough nut to crack for Stan Wawrinka.
It’s hard to know what to expect from Stan these days, but I don’t think I could back him as a 1.58 favourite in this one.
Borna Coric was pushed all the way by Hubert Hurkacz in a very mediocre match indeed in round one, but he has a good record against the ‘baseline grinders’ in my database, winning nine of his last 11 main level matches on all surfaces.
He faces such an opponent on Tuesday in Jaume Munar and it’s quite possible that Coric could be outlasted by the Spaniard, but the layers seem to agree and the price on Munar is too short for me.
The other one that has possibilities, but I haven’t seen firm prices for yet, is for Lorenzo Sonego to go well against Karen Khachanov, with the Russian’s form all over the place this season.
It doesn’t look like it’ll be a tempting price on the Italian though and instead Londero looks the bet for Wednesday.
Best Bet
0.5 points win Londero +3.5 games to beat Auger-Aliassime at 1.84
