We came out of Saturday’s ATP semi finals in Chengdu and Zhuhai with a profit when the opening set between Alexander Bublik and Lloyd Harris went to a breaker – and those who took the big price on Bublik 7-6 would have enjoyed an even better priced winner.
Bublik moves on to face Pablo Carreno Busta for the Chengdu Open title, while Adrian Mannarino takes on Alex De Minaur in the title match at the Zhuhai Championships.
It’ll be another physical test in Zhuhai on Sunday, as they play at (not before) 19:00 local time (12:00 UK) at which time it’ll still be around 30C and with 65% humidity.
That’s tough and Alex De Minaur has the advantage of having played several of his matches at this time of the day and the lack of speed in the courts at that time especially will surely be an advantage to him over Adrian Mannarino.
Mannarino is usually at his best on quick, low bouncing surfaces such as grass, which is why I’m surprised he’s done so well in Zhuhai, where Roberto Bautista Agut was the latest to voice his disapproval over conditions.
“The players, we die on court because we have to play 30 or 40 balls every point,” RBA said. “I think it's good for the spectators, but it's not good for us.”
It wasn’t good for RBA on Saturday when he was crushed by another fine performance from De Minaur, who dropped only four games in an unexpectedly one-sided affair.
It’s hard to see what Mannarino can do in slow conditions against an athlete and retriever like De Minaur on this form and the one thing here that may be in Manna’s favour is De Minaur’s recent record against lefties.
He’s lost five of his last seven against left-handers and he really ran out of ideas against Yoshihito Nishioka in Cincy a few months ago, which should please Mannarino backers.
But in these conditions it’s hard to see Mannarino having the physicality or the power to damage De Minaur, who has been the best player in Zhuhai this week and would be a deserved winner.
De Minaur is 7-2 at main level in the price range 1.30 to 1.39, while Mannarino is 0-6 on outdoor hard in completed matches when he’s been priced up as a 3.30 to 3.60 underdog.
The Chengdu final may be an altogether more entertaining affair, with a big clash of styles between the unpredictable and unorthodox Alexander Bublik facing the solid Pablo Carreno Busta at around 08:00 UK time (not before 15:00 local).
It’s set to be warm (27C in the shade) and fairly humid at 54% humidity when this one starts and with little wind, so pretty good conditions.
Bublik has found conditions very much to his liking on serve this week, firing down 1.61 aces per game and holding serve 90% of the time, but what can he do in his return games?
PCB has held serve a stellar 95.3% of the time this week in Chengdu and much of that is down to him winning 65% of his second serve points won, where Bublik is only at 47.6% in that regard.
So, it’s fair to say that Bublik has relied a lot on his first serve this week and will need to serve well again to compete with a PCB whose form has returned after a tough season with injuries.
But Bublik did take Carreno Busta all the way to a final set tie break on a much slower indoor hard court in Moscow in their only prior career meeting and that was way back in 2016 when Bublik was ranked 266 in the world and a 4.69 betting chance.
And it wouldn’t be much of a surprise if Bublik either took PCB to a tie break or to a final set (or possibly both), with tie break played and 2-1 to Carreno Busta the bets of interest here.
Bublik has beaten ‘baseline grinders’ Joao Sousa, Albert Ramos and Roberto Carballes Baena (RCB on clay), all as underdog, but PCB will probably look to the performance that Pablo Andujar delivered against Bublik for his benchmark here.
PCB has a weak record against the big servers in my database on outdoor hard (2-10 win/loss) and has played at least one tie break in 12 of his last 14 against that group of players on all surfaces (seven of his last eight on outdoor hard alone).
Sometimes there’s not a lot that opponents can do about Bublik’s game for spells and the Kazakh may well have a set in him here, so the 3.85 about the Spaniard taking it in a decider appeals to me in this one.
Best Bet
0.5 points win Carreno Busta to beat Bublik 2-1 at 3.85
