We signed off from a profitable week in Chengdu and Zhuhai with a nice 3.85 winner in the form of Pablo Carreno Busta’s 2-1 victory over Alexander Bublik and anyone who took the other option of a tie break in that one would have collected as well.
This week the players continue the Asian swing in Beijing and Tokyo and at the China Open in the last seven years there has been a below average 26% of underdog winners and very few tie breaks.
Only 29% of Beijing’s matches in the last seven years have featured a tie break and that’s the third fewest percentage of any hard court tournament on tour.
The Japan Open usually provides more underdog winners (32% in the last seven years) and more tie break matches (38% over the last seven years).
It’s back on outdoor hard this year after one season indoors in 2018 and there are five matches on the card on Monday at the Japan Open, where it’s set to be warm (28C in the shade) and with at least 60% humidity, plus a hint of wind at 10kph.
In Beijing, where they have six matches on the card on day one, we’re set for a warm and sunny Monday, with 30C heat in the shade and with less humidity at around 40% and a similar wind speed to Tokyo.
Starting with Tokyo then, and the two home wild cards, Go Soeda and Yuichi Sugita both have poor records in the main draw here, with Soeda 0-12 in the main draw and Sugita 2-7.
The third Japanese player on display on Monday in Tokyo has also failed to perform at his home tournament so far, with Yoshihito Nishioka 0-3 at the moment here and coming off a poor performance last week.
He’s still got a chance against Joao Sousa and I’d probably take a chance on Nishioka if this wasn’t his home event, but he seems to me to be a player that allows nerves and/or pressure to get to him as it most likely did last week when he was defending 250 ranking points.
The two underdogs that look the most likely to provide a return on Monday in Tokyo are Hubert Hurkacz and Lorenzo Sonego, with preference for the price of around 2.60 on Sonego.
The Italian has been in good form this season and he’s shown he can adapt to different surfaces, with his big game taking him to the Antalya title on grass, while his clay skills allowed him to retain the Genova Challenger title on the dirt a few weeks back.
Sonego’s big serve and forehand game should transfer well to the lively hard courts of Tokyo and we can see from his serve stats that he’s now one of the best from the service line currently.
He’s ranked 19th in the 2019 leaderboard in service games won (83.4%) and he’s certainly been in better form this campaign than Hyeon Chung, who’s once again struggled with injury and only played 18 main level matches in 2019.
And Chung has struggled against big serving players in the past, holding a 3-8 win/loss record against the ones in my database, and playing at least one tie break in 9 of his 15 matches against them.
Given also that Sonego plays a lot of tie breaks (0.27 per set on all surfaces, including clay this season) I’m happy to give the over 0.5 tie breaks a go here at 2.55 as well as taking a chance on Sonego at 2.60.
Chung hasn’t been the same player that we saw make the Melbourne semis a few years ago for some time now and he was eased aside last week by Joao Sousa, who had a quick turnaround from his previous tournament to take into account.
Hubert Hurkacz has beaten Lucas Pouille twice this season already and yet he’s slight underdog for their Tokyo clash, but I’m a little put off by the Pole’s form since he won Winston-Salem, as he hasn’t won since and I’m not sure how long he’s been in Asia for.
Moving on to Beijing and the underdogs that look like they may be worth considering at the China Open on Monday appear to be Zhizhen Zhang, Cristian Garin and Andrey Rublev.
Zhang played well last week in Zhuhai and should have beaten Andreas Seppi, having led 6-2 in the final set tie break and he’s facing a Kyle Edmund that looks seriously low on confidence.
Edmund was beaten in straight sets by Garin last week and before that he lost to Pablo Andujar in New York, so backing the Brit (who made the semis here a year ago) at a price like 1.33 looks dangerous.
Garin beat left-hander Fernando Verdasco as well as Edmund last week, so he shouldn’t fear Cam Norrie, who probably should have been beaten by Damir Dzumhur in qualies on Sunday.
Garin as slight underdog here is a viable option, as is Andrey Rublev, whose form lately has been good and who took down Grigor Dimitrov in straight sets as a 5.16 chance at the US Open a couple of years ago.
Dimitrov beat Rublev both times they’ve met since, but they were in 2018 and it remains to be seen whether or not Dimitrov’s run to this year’s US Open semis is merely a flash in the pan or not.
I wouldn’t fall off my chair in shock if Frances Tiafoe and Pablo Cuevas defeated Alexander Zverev and Karen Khachanov respectively either, but the prices aren’t too appealing on those two.
Best Bets
0.5 points win Sonego to beat Chung at 2.60
0.5 points win over 0.5 tie breaks in Sonego/Chung at 2.55
