Another dismal performance greeted us on Friday morning, this time from Jeremy Chardy, who couldn’t put a foot right in the opening set against Nicolas Jarry in Bastad.
I mentioned Chardy’s poor record in main level quarter finals, but having held serve 89% of the time against Garin and Carreno Busta the unpredictable Frenchman was broken four times in a row by Jarry (who breaks less than 20% of the time on clay) in a woeful showing.
There was better news later on in Bastad when our 25-1 outright hope Juan Ignacio Londero made it through to the semi finals, despite trying his best to waste every break point that came his way against Richard Gasquet.
Given the usually very windy conditions in Bastad I wouldn’t have put too much money on a Federico Delbonis vs Nicolas Jarry semi final, with both having high ball tosses and not the best movement in the world.
Apart from one day earlier in the week it hasn’t been that windy this time and the forecast suggests it won’t be again on Saturday, so that’ll help both of these two, with Delbonis having a particularly high ball toss.
Jarry has, perhaps surprisingly given that his backhand side is the weaker wing, won 13 of his last 15 matches against left-handers, with the two defeats coming against Mischa Zverev on grass and Martin Klizan on clay when Jarry was coming straight from grass.
Delbonis won the only prior between these two, but it was two years ago when Jarry was number 139 in the world and much has changed since then.
The prices look about right there and after the week I’ve had in Bastad (Londero aside) I’m happy to not get involved on Saturday.
My focus in Bastad will be on seeing how Londero does against Albert Ramos, with Londero having won 13 of his last 17 matches against lefties at all levels (5-2 win/loss at main level on clay).
He beat two lefties (Delbonis and Pella) back-to-back to win Cordoba earlier this season and perhaps history will repeat, with Ramos and Delbonis the victims again.
He’ll certainly need to do much better on break point chances, with two awful returns in that facet of the game against Gasquet (3 from 17) and Dellien (3 from 19).
Londero made some very odd shot choices in many of those break point chances against Gasquet and hopefully the Argentine will save his best conversion days for Saturday and Sunday.
I definitely wouldn’t be backing Ramos as favourite in this one if were coming into it with a neutral mindset, as he still looks some way down on his confidence in the big moments.
He got lucky against a sick and lacklustre Fernando Verdasco and was struggling against Roberto Carballes Baena as well until the latter threw away a service game early in set two and the match turned.
Londero should get his chances again today and if he takes them a bit better he’s got every chance and I’m tempted to back him again at these prices.
Over in Umag Attila Balazs keeps on surprising with his ability to win long three setters and he did it again versus Stefano Travaglia on Friday.
It seems a tall order for the Hungarian after all that work in the previous rounds (he’s played 13 sets already and made a quarter final last week at Challenger level) but Laslo Djere has played back-to-back three setters as well and has rarely looked fully fit in recent months.
Balazs beat Djere in their only career clash, but it was almost two years ago now and a lot has changed since then for Djere.
He’s grinding out the wins and he should do so again versus a fatigued Balazs.
And fatigue will possibly be an issue in the second semi final when Salvatore Caruso faces Dusan Lajovic for the first time in his career.
Caruso finished at after 1am local time last night (well, morning really) and that hands an advantage to Lajovic you would think when also considering that Caruso has come through qualies and played 12 sets to Lajovic’s five.
But Lajovic has won only one of his five main level career semi finals (oddly, bar far the biggest one in Monte-Carlo this year) and his backhand will get a test from the Caruso backhand today.
The Serb has lost his last three matches at main level when priced up between 1.50 and 1.70, including the most recent one a 6-2, 6-1 loss to Cam Norrie on clay in Rio.
Lajovic’s experience will probably help here, with Caruso a first time main level semi finalist, but he’s not one to trust.
There have been some fun and games in Newport this week and never more so than yesterday when the ever-entertaining Alexander Bublik decided to lose the first seven games against Tennys Sandgren and then win 12 of the last 15.
Sandgren’s brain couldn’t cope with the variety of underarm serves and unusual shot choices coming from Bublik’s racquet and he downed tools in the end, taking a bagel from the Kazakh in the end.
I’d expect Marcel Granollers, who delivered a bagel of his own to a typically disinterested Mischa Zverev on Friday, to cope better with the Bublik variety and the Spaniard, who made the semis here last year, is yet to be broken this week.
That said, Granollers is another with a questionable mentality at the business end of tournaments lately, losing three of his last four semis, including that one here last year to Steve Johnson, and he hasn’t won one away from clay since 2011.
Finally, I expected Matt Ebden to go well against John Isner on Friday and he did – for a set and a bit.
Isner was again pretty poor early on against Ebden, but the Aussie lacked belief and composure in the big moments, perhaps due to his poor run this season, and he allowed Isner to get away with it.
Isner has ‘only’ won 77% of the points on his first serve this week so far and that’s despite hitting 1.61 aces per game – and in his last 50 on grass he’s won 82% of his first serve points.
A small difference, but a notable one, and although he improved towards the end of the Ebden match he still gave the Aussie enough openings for Ebden to have won it.
Ugo Humbert hasn’t really faced any of the big servers in the game yet, so we’re guessing a bit as to how he’ll handle the Isner serve on these Newport courts.
The young Frenchman has only won 42% of his second serve points this week, so there could well be an opportunity for Isner here to have a swing on the Humbert second delivery.
I’m slightly tempted by the 3.50 about no tie breaks here, with Humbert perhaps likely to either be broken or crumble under the pressure to hold, but Isner has played at least one breaker in eight of his last nine completed matches on grass against lefties.
So, another tough day in prospect for punters and I’ll just be cheering on Londero today, with the Argentine the underdog with the most potential at the prices in my view on Saturday.
