It’s been a nice couple of days for our bets in Rio, Marseille and Delray Beach, with my decision not to hedge the position we had on 7.0 chance Gianluca Mager paying off in Rio on Saturday.
Also on Saturday we got a bit of luck when Alexander Bublik broke and held from 3-5 down to Stefanos Tsitsipas in set one of their semi final in Marseille to provide a 2.88 winner for the over 10.5 games there.
And it’s Stefanos Tsitsipas that contests the first of Sunday’s three ATP Tour finals when he takes on Felix Auger-Aliassime at (not before) 13:00 UK time for the Open 13 Provence title.
This has been a match-up that has favoured Auger-Aliassime so far in their rivalry, with FAA winning three of their four clashes at all levels (one was at the US Open Juniors of 2016).
Tsitsipas won the most recent one in two tie breaks in Shanghai four months or so ago, but it’s FAA that’s produced the goods more often in their three main level meetings, all of which took place last season on outdoor hard and grass.
The Canadian has held serve a whopping 97% of the time against Tsitsipas in those three matches and while that figure has certainly been aided by an astonishingly high break point save mark of 95% FAA has led the way in many of the other statistical areas, too.
He’s won 78% of his first serve points compared to 73% for Tsitsipas and FAA is 10% better off in terms of second serve points won, too (51.4% compared to 41.2%).
He’s also won more return points (35.8% compared to 31%) and the only area where Tsitsipas is better off is in break point chances created: 0.63 per game for Tsitsipas compared to 0.34 per game for Auger-Aliassime.
FAA isn’t likely to carry on saving 95% of the break points against him in this career series, but he also isn’t likely to keep losing in finals (lost all four at main level so far and all in straight sets).
The price on FAA today is worthy of a small interest, given how well he’s shaped up against Tsitsipas in the past and that the last time this pair met Tsitsipas was 1.54 and now he’s as short as 1.40.
Granted, Tsitsipas has been playing well this week, but given how he’s struggled against this opponent in the past this price is too short and I’ll take Auger-Aliassime for the upset.
Unfortunately, due to the weather in both Rio de Janeiro and Delray Beach we have no finals set at either tournament yet.
In Delray Beach, the rain delays saved Yoshihito Nishioka (by his own admission) after a dismal start to his semi final against Ugo Humbert and annoyingly, after I shortlisted Nishioka at the start he’s now into the final.
His injury last week put me off him outright as short as 16-1 in a decent field, but at least he’s proven me right in terms of the type of player that can go well in the tricky conditions at Delray Beach.
He’ll have his work cut out in the final though, holding a 5-14 win/loss record against the big servers in my database, but he will be fresher, as Reilly Opelka and Milos Raonic haven’t even started their semi final yet and will have to play twice in a day (and Opelka is due in Acapulco on Monday).
Interestingly, in those 19 matches that Nishioka has played versus big servers, only five have featured tie breaks.
Over in Rio, they’re still at the semi final stage, too, with Cristian Garin and Gianluca Mager both a set up on Borna Coric and Attila Balazs respectively and the weather looks okay for them to finish today, but as far as bets go for today there’s only one match in town.
Best Bet
0.5 points win Auger-Aliassime to beat Tsitsipas at 2.88
