There were a few good winners in my shortlist of potential underdogs on Tuesday and hopefully others chose a little better than I did myself.
Pierre-Hugues Herbert, Denis Kudla, Ramkumar Ramanathan, and Stan Wawrinka were all winners, while the one I opted for to win set one, Ricardas Berankis, lost the opener yet won the match at a big price against David Goffin, while Alexei Popyrin was disappointing.
It’s another busy day on the ATP World Tour on Wednesday, with 23 matches on the card across this week’s three tournaments, but the two I like today take place in Doha.
Andrey Rublev vs Nikoloz Basilashvili
If we’re going on recent form and stats on outdoor hard courts at main level when analysing this match it’s a simple choice to side with underdog Basilashvili here.
The big-hitting Georgian compiled some fine numbers on this surface in his last 10 matches (83.6% holds/23.3% breaks = 106.9 total), beating the likes of on his way to the Beijing title in the autumn.
Rublev on the other hand is still having issues with his weak second serve and his last 10 matches on outdoor hard he’s only won 42.6 of the points on that attackable second delivery.
In addition, his hold/break stats of 74.7% holds/20.8% breaks (95.5 total) are some way behind those of Basilashvili and the only reason I can see for Rublev being favoured here is his run to the final at this event a year ago.
Achieving consistent results with a weak second serve like Rublev’s has been a problem for the Russian, who only won back-to-back matches in five of his 20 tournaments in 2018.
Basilashvili on the other hand was much-improved in the mental department as much as anything else last season and if he can keep that going he looks fine value here in a first career clash with Rublev.
The aggressive Basil is sure to be all over the weak part of Rublev’s game and I’m happy to take him as underdog in this one.
Guido Pella vs Marco Cecchinato
Pella’s form and stats on outdoor hard are considerably better than those of Cecchinato, who struggles badly to break serve on this surface and has no sort of record against left-handers either.
On all surfaces at main level Cecchinato is 3-7 versus lefties and on hard courts at all levels the Italian is 1-8, with the sole victory coming against Andrea Arnaboldi at the Koblenz Challenger a year ago.
Purely on the respective outdoor hard court form of the two in 2018 Pella has a decent advantage, compiling a 6-7 win/loss mark and a 103 hold/break total, with Cecchinato back on 91 (79.3% holds/12% breaks) in his 11 matches (4-7 win/loss).
The pair have met a couple of times on clay, with one win each in completed matches, but Pella has a clear edge for me on this surface and I’m happy to back him at 1.84 here.
Briefly on Wednesday’s other matches, starting in Brisbane, we have outrights Daniil Medvedev and John Millman going for us today against illustrious opposition in Andy Murray and Grigor Dimitrov, but both are winnable for me.
Millman should have taken down Dimitrov here a year ago, but failed with match points, while Murray’s level is still hard to assess following his time away from the tour due to injury.
Jeremy Chardy has lost 11 of his last 12 against the big servers in my database, but his opponent Nick Kyrgios’ return game has stagnated to the point where he’s only broken serve 9.4% of the time in his last 10 matches on this surface.
Kei Nishikori’s outdoor hard stats for the last 12 months are mediocre at best, with a 102.2 hold break total from his 18 matches (11-7 win/loss), but he was coming back from injury a year ago and combined total on all surfaces in his last 10 matches was better at 104.3.
In Pune we have Ramkumar Ramanathan into round two after his come from behind win over Marcel Granollers on Tuesday and he has a fair shot against the very inconsistent Malek Jaziri on Wednesday.
You never really know what to expect from Jaziri and he’s been a terribly slow starter in his years on the main tour, losing every one of his season-opening matches at main level.
The last time he won his first match of the season was way back in 2011 at a Futures in Colombia on clay, so on that trend Ramanathan has a fine opportunity here.
Ernests Gulbis versus Hyeon Chung is an interesting one, with Gulbis having a decent main level record over the past year, but on outdoor hard alone at this level he’s gone 2-8 in his last 10 matches, holding serve only 76.7% of the time (and breaking 14.1% of the time).
Chung has been very in and out as well in recent times and while it wouldn’t be much of a shock if Chung lost it’s hard to back Gulbis on those hard court numbers.
Best Bets
1 point win Basilashvili to beat Rublev at 2.14
1 point win Pella to beat Cecchinato at 1.84
