It’s been a poor week one way or another in Vienna and Basel and it was compounded on Friday by a bet losing thanks to the player we backed last week coming good seven days too late.
Reilly Opelka managed to lose first up to Stefano Travaglia when he were on him last week in a 250 in Stockholm and a week later in a 500 in Basel he’s made the semi finals, knocking out David Goffin and Roberto Bautista Agut.
And we’re almost in the same situation now as a year ago when we backed Marius Copil in Stockholm (lost as favourite in round one) and he went on to make the final of Basel as a qualifier.
It’s turned out more or less as expected at the business end of Basel, with Roger Federer and Stefanos Tsitsipas going head-to-head for a place in the final and Alex De Minaur facing a big server (Opelka, not Copil, sadly) in the other semi final.
We start at around 13:00 UK time on Saturday with crowd favourite Dominic Thiem facing a swift rematch of his Shanghai loss to Matteo Berrettini.
There was very little in that Shanghai clash, with both players winning the same number of points, and Thiem losing despite winning 81% of his first serve points and 73% of his second serve points.
Thiem was also a bit jaded in that one, having won the title in Beijing just five days earlier and the slower conditions, plus having the crowd on his side in Vienna will surely aid the Austrian this time.
The layers agree and make Thiem a 1.57 favourite here, which looks about right to me.
The second semi final will be a repeat of the Antwerp semi final of 2018 between Gael Monfils and Diego Schwartzman at not before 14:00 UK time and the way that Monfils has been serving lately gives him a decent advantage here.
Lamonf has staged another miracle recovery after looking physically compromised to say the least against Dennis Novak and versus Sinner and Bedene he’s won 83% and 80% of his first serve points respectively.
All of a sudden he looks fine again, which is pretty much par for the course for the dramatic Monfils and given the advantage he does have on serve compared to Schwartzman he looks the right favourite.
I said yesterday that Schwartzman was a possible underdog option against Karen Khachanov and it was another one of those off-colour showings from the Russian that allowed Schwartzman to come back from a double break down in set one to win.
But he’s a good 10-15% down on first serve points won in this match-up if Monfils continues in his good serving groove and Lamonf won 75% on first serve even against a fine returner like Schwartzman when they clashed in Antwerp.
You never know with Monfils, but he should have too much firepower for Schwartzman.
Basel looks much more interesting from a betting perspective though, where it seems to me that Roger Federer is priced up too short at 1.26 to beat Stefanos Tsitsipas.
There may be some sort of perceived home advantage built into this price and while Federer has an excellent record in Basel he’s hardly unbeatable here, as two losses in finals to Juan Martin Del Potro show.
What interests me about Tsitsipas is his apparent love for taking on the elite and this feels like a similar situation to the one in Shanghai when he beat Novak Djokovic as a 5.47 chance a few weeks ago.
He came into that one having scraped past Hubert Hurkacz in a final set tie break and then stunned Djokovic, who was in great form and on a run of 28 wins from 30 matches in Shanghai, from a set down.
Now he faces Federer, who’s won 22 straight in Basel, but he might be a bit lacking in hard match practice, having had two strolls in the park in rounds one and two and a walkover from Stan Wawrinka in the quarter finals.
Tsitsipas has now beaten Djokovic, Federer and Nadal this season and he’s a decent 4-7 win/loss in his 12 career matches versus this elite trio.
So, he’s a player that loves this challenge, and to take on Federer on his home court will surely be something that Tsitsipas will relish, where you get the feeling that some ‘lesser’ matches are a bit of a chore for him.
It’s not as if Federer is in blinding form at the moment either, losing to Alexander Zverev in Shanghai and failing to win a title since Halle on the grass back in June, so this price is a tad short for me and I’ll take the evens on Tsitsipas +3.5 games.
The irony will be complete in the second semi final if Reilly Opelka beats Alex De Minaur to make the final the week after his Stockholm failure and against an opponent that I highlighted pre-tournament and one who’s beaten him three times this season already.
But could it be the case that the slower conditions here in Basel than those in Sydney, Atlanta and Cincy, where Opelka was beaten by De Minaur before, will allow Opelka to reverse the form?
There was more than a hint of burglary about Opelka’s win over Roberto Bautista Agut on Friday, with Opelka emerging triumphant despite winning only 21% of his second serve points.
He won only five (!) second serve points in three sets of tennis against RBA and somehow took three of his four break chances to add to 31 aces and nick the win against the Spaniard.
It’s been a match-up that’s proven tough for Opelka, with ADM able to keep the ball low against this tall opponent and move him around, making him hit on the run, but we’ll see if he can do that quite as effectively indoors on a slower surface.
De Minaur has held serve 100% of the time so far against Opelka, who’s held 90% of the time against Opelka and they’ve played 0.57 tie breaks per set, so 6.25 on Opelka winning set one looks generous.
Another irony that I’d forgotten about until now is that we backed Opelka outright in Atlanta at 20-1 and he lost to De Minaur in the deciding set of the semi finals, so Opelka’s bound to win today.
So, the prices that look generous today are on Tsitsipas and a set one tie break in the Opelka/De Minaur clash.
Best Bets
0.5 points win Tsitsipas +3.5 games to beat Federer at 1.98
0.5 points win Opelka to win set one 7-6 at 6.25
