Saturday was another good day for us in Brisbane and Pune, with our outright, Daniil Medvedev, defeating Jo-Wilfried Tsonga to make the title match there, while Kevin Anderson landed us a 3.55 winner in Pune when he nicked the 2-1 win and the title right at the death over Ivo Karlovic at the Tata Open Maharashtra.
Daniil Medvedev vs Kei Nishikori
So, we’re in a good position in Brisbane with our 14-1 chance Medvedev now a 2.20 shot to win the title and he’s taking on the same player that the Russian beat when he secured us a 45-1 outright winner in Tokyo a few months ago.
It’s hard to see Nishikori playing quite as poorly on Sunday in Brisbane as he did in that Tokyo final, but anything’s possible given Nishikori’s really poor recent record in big matches.
If he loses to Medvedev on Sunday that’ll be 10 straight finals he’s lost at main level, and he’s on a run of losing 18 of 19 sets played in finals since he beat Taylor Fritz to win Memphis in 2016.
He’s faced some quality opposition in many of those finals, but there’s little doubt that he tightens up considerably now in big matches, which we saw again at the Tour Finals in London when he was awful.
This run of his in Brisbane this week reminds me of when we backed Nishikori outright in Vienna a few months back and he impressed up until the final when yet again he didn’t show up and was beaten in two by Kevin Anderson.
We’ll see if a new season means a fresh start for Nishikori in big matches because he desperately needs it and perhaps things will go his way on Sunday, but no doubt Medvedev will be looking to get after that attackable second serve of Nishikori’s.
The Japanese only won five points all match on his second serve against Medvedev in Tokyo and the Russian has been going after the second serves of Andy Murray, Tsonga and Milos Raonic this week in Brisbane.
Murray only won 33% on his second ball, with Tsonga managing just 28%, while Raonic did manage 50% and Nishikori will need to serve as well as he has been so far this week to keep Medvedev at bay.
Nishikori served at 79% of first serves in against Grigor Dimitrov and 70% against Jeremy Chardy, but a repeat of the 57% that he chalked up against Denis Kudla could see him in trouble (he served at 65% against Medvedev in Tokyo and was still crushed).
Even the excellent returning skills of Nishikori could do nothing about Medvedev that day in Tokyo, with the Russian dropping only five points on serve all day, but the conditions were different on indoor hard.
Looking at the stats of the pair on outdoor hard courts at main level we find there’s not a lot in it, both in the last 12 months and their last 10 matches, with Medvedev slightly ahead on each count.
The Russian is 24-8 win/loss for the last 12 months and from those matches he’s achieved a service hold/break total of 106.8 (Nishikori 14-7 win/loss and 105.3), while both men have won eight of their last 10 and Medvedev has an impressive total of 112 in those matches, while Nishikori is just behind on 110.9.
Both men have won 50% of their matches against top-20 ranked opposition in the last 12 months, so we can see why it’s priced up fairly evenly, though I would have had this a tad closer than the current odds or perhaps had Medvedev as slight favourite.
Medvedev has come out and played the same way he did in the latter half of 2018 and he looks full of confidence right now, which may be key, as it’s hard to have much faith in Nishikori’s true belief, having watched him freeze so many times in big matches lately.
Our man has every chance in this one and I’m expecting a close battle if Nishikori serves well, but for me I’ll have four points on Nishikori as a hedging wager to ensure a break even week if it turns out to be Kei’s day and an eight-points profit if Medvedev takes the title.
Best Bet
4 points win Nishikori to beat Medvedev (only if backed Medvedev outright at 15.0) at 1.67
