We just about sneaked a winner in on Tuesday, thanks to Felix Auger-Aliassime failing to serve out the match against Juan Igancio Londero, who saved a couple of match points to sneak over the handicap line of +3.5 games.
Typically, the ones I didn’t like the price on, Lorenzo Sonego and Marco Cecchinato, both won, and there are a few matches on Wednesday’s card in Monte-Carlo that look to hold possibilities for the betting underdog.
The four that make the most appeal for me are: Jan-Lennard Struff, Dusan Lajovic, Martin Klizan and Felix Auger-Aliassime.
I’m guessing a little bit on the match-up between Dusan Lajovic and David Goffin, but I’m not at all convinced that the Belgian should be as short as 1.30 against a canny clay court operator like Lajovic.
Indeed, there’s nothing between them at all in first and second serve points won on clay at main level in the past year (both win 70-71% on their first ball and 52% on their second) and that’s with Goffin having won 13 of his 18 matches and Lajovic 14 of his 25.
Goffin has converted a higher number of break point chances, but he’s not been in anything like the sort of form he was last year in 2019 and I’m tempted with the over games or Lajovic on the handicap here.
Dominic Thiem vs Martin Klizan
You take your chances with Klizan always, but these odds are a tad disrespectful considering that the Slovakian has had the better of things in the two meetings played on clay against Thiem.
Granted, both were in Thiem’s backyard of Kitzbuhel at altitude, where Thiem has struggled, but Klizan was much superior off the ground in those two clashes (one was only last summer) that I have to give him a good chance today.
It was much hotter and far quicker when they met last summer, but Klizan has shown on numerous occasions that he has the power to hit through slow, damp clay conditions and if he’s in the mood he could well give Thiem a good battle here.
Klizan has won 64% of the points on his second serve against Thiem on clay (Thiem only 47% on his second ball) and created 0.63 break chances per game versus the Austrian (Thiem only 0.33 break chances), so on those numbers he’s the one that’s been the boss in the rallies.
If we look at Klizan’s general stats on clay at main level from the past year we see that he weighs in with a combined service hold/break total of 107.1 in 17 matches (13-4 win/loss), which is impressive and only 3% behind Thiem in that regard.
With a match under his belt here in Monte-Carlo as well Klizan has every chance if he turns up in the mood, but in case he’d below par it’s still odds-against that he takes a set.
A couple of things put me off backing Felix Auger-Aliassime on Wednesday: he pulled out of the doubles citing a hip injury and the price is probably too short, given that he’s only 2.70 to beat the world number three.
Admittedly, Alexander Zverev isn’t exactly playing like a world number three right now, but he could bounce back to form at any time and I prefer Jan-Lennard Struff as my second bet against Grigor Dimitrov.
I’m trying to remember the last decent match that Dimitrov played and other than in beating a woeful Feli Lopez in Miami I can’t bring any to mind and this looks a tough assignment on form for the Bulgarian.
Struff beat Dimitrov here in Monte-Carlo two years ago in quite heavy conditions and while it’s meant to be sunny tomorrow it’ll still be rather slow and Dimitrov doesn’t look in the sort of form to hit enough winners at the moment.
He hit 41 unforced errors in a pretty poor two-set match against an equally bad Matteo Berrettini in round one this week and it’s actually Struff that has the higher service hold/break total on clay at main level this past year.
Dimitrov has a losing 3-4 record on clay at main level when priced up between 1.60 and 1.70 and this could easily be another defeat.
The all-Spanish clash between Roberto Bautista Agut and Rafael Nadal will be an interesting one, with Nadal’s knees likely to get a decent test from his compatriot, who’s in pretty decent form at the moment.
On the face of it I wouldn’t have thought that RBA quite has the power to hit through Nadal on a slowish clay court, but we have no real idea if Nadal is fit or not, but it looks like the layers are assuming he is fit.
Nadal’s the same price now as we was in Madrid in 2014 when he beat RBA in straight sets and I wouldn’t fancy RBA against a fully fit Nadal here in Monte-Carlo, but RBA is playing with more belief these days, so I wouldn’t be surprised if he covered the 6.5 game handicap.
Best Bets
0.5 points win Klizan +1.5 sets to beat Thiem at 2.10
0.5 points win Struff to beat Dimitrov at 2.28
