The last of our outrights in Miami disintegrated in disappointing, although not exactly surprising, fashion on Tuesday when Nick Kyrgios was in one of his moods and Nikoloz Basilashvili had a shocker on serve.
The less said about Kyrgios the better, but Basil, after serving so well in the previous round, made only 39% of his first serves (his worst ever day in terms of first serve percentage) and combined it with eight double faults in two sets against Felix Auger-Aliassime.
FAA, in contrast, sent down 13 aces and still Basil only lost by seven points in total (served for set one) and won 13% more on his second serve, so his missing first serve was hugely disappointing in what wasn’t the best quality match.
What made it all the more painful was Novak Djokovic’s loss later in the day opening up the draw as I’d hoped it might, but at least my only daily bet of the day won with Roberto Bautista Agut covering the handicap against the Serb, to make it 12 winners from 16 so far this tournament.
Rain then arrived in Miami to postpone Roger Federer’s match against Daniil Medvedev and Wednesday’s forecast suggests there won’t be any today, but it will be windy (26kph gusts) and warm at around 26C.
They start later at around 19:00 UK time on Wednesday and the new 2.50 tournament favourite Federer will probably appreciate the earlier start today in the day session if not the back-to-back matches he’ll have to play on Wednesday and Thursday if he wants to make the semis.
We know that Fed is one of the best players around in the wind and he’ll enjoy the sun on his back, too, so I’m not convinced enough about Medvedev in the conditions to back him to win this one.
In his favour is the day off he’s now had after three mentally tiring sets against Reilly Opelka and I expect this to be a very decent test for the Swiss.
Roberto Bautista Agut vs John Isner
But if the layers are going to price RBA up as underdog against Isner I’m happy to take a chance on RBA coming through in these slow conditions and on a day that looks another quite unappealing one for betting the Spaniard is a tentative play.
RBA has a solid record against big servers, winning his last five (on indoor hard, outdoor hard and clay) versus the ones in my database and what stands out is that he’s 8-1 win/loss against them on clay.
So, in slower conditions he’s been able to defuse them on a regular basis and that could easily be the case again versus Isner, who’s not playing as well as he was this time last year.
Kyle Edmund had his chances against Isner yesterday, but failed to take them, and assuming that RBA isn’t too fatigued after the Djokovic match – and he should be buzzing with a M1000 final within sight – the Spaniard should be able to get enough Isner serves back to take it.
In his 44 matches (26-18 win/loss) against the big servers on my list at main level RBA has managed to break them 15.2% of the time (17.2% on outdoor hard), which is decent, but he does tend to sometimes crumble under the pressure of having to hold his own deal all the time.
Consequently he’s played a lot of three setters against the big servers (all three clashes with Isner have gone to a decider), so I am tempted to have a small interest in the 2-1 to RBA here.
It won’t be a long match, with their last meeting lasting just 1h 41m for three sets, so I’m not worried about fatigue, and another telling stat for RBA is that he’s created 0.46 break chances per game against these big servers.
It doesn’t look a day for any one point bets, but half a point on 2-1 to RBA at 4.20 looks worthy of a small interest.
The late match between Felix Auger-Aliassime and Borna Coric holds little interest to me from a betting point of view, with Coric still looking below his best and a tad fortunate that Kyrgios was in one of his less than professional frames of mind on Tuesday.
FAA rode his luck as well against Basilashvili and the odds look about right here, with the young Canadian seeming to have his work cut out in slow, evening conditions to hit through the more measured Croatian.
Best Bet
0.5 points win Bautista-Agut to beat Isner 2-1 at 4.20
