We opened up with a 2.45 winner on Wednesday when John Isner and Cristian Garin played out the expected tie break in set one of their encounter, but the fact that Isner lost both it and the set two tie break meant we lost an outright in the process.
Then the day got better again when Kyle Edmund beat Diego Schwartzman as a 2.38 chance and in straight sets, too, but at the time of writing Matteo Berrettini is struggling against Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, so a bit of an up and down day on the whole.
The third round of the Paris Masters has proven a tough place for underdog backers to find much joy over the years, with all eight underdogs losing last year, and only 10 of the last 48 dogs have been successful (21%).
One that surely stands a decent chance is Cristian Garin, who takes on Jeremy Chardy in the first match of the day on Court Central at around 10:00 UK time on Thursday.
Chardy, probably to the surprise of very few observers, would have lost you money if you’d backed him each time he started a main level match between 1.50 and 1.69 in his career.
And in his last dozen main level matches in that price range he’s lost seven of them (7-7 in his career on indoor hard only in that price range), so he’s not exactly a favourite to trust at around today’s price of 1.55 against Garin.
The Frenchman, as I mentioned earlier in the week, has a poor record at the Paris Masters (now 5-9 win/loss in completed main draw matches) and he was a tad fortunate that Daniil Medvedev was well off his game when that pair clashed on Tuesday night and took only one of 15 break chances.
I still wouldn’t have had a brass farthing on Chardy serving out the match against Medvedev and predictably his ball toss in that game was all over the place; the surprise was that Medvedev let him get away with it with uncharacteristic errors.
Chardy does have a 4-1 career series record over Garin, but three of those were back when Garin was ranked between 192 and 920 in the world and of little relevance.
It’s 1-1 this season and while Garin was a bit lucky to nick their Houston clash after Chardy blew several match points, the Chilean was struggling for fitness when they met in slower conditions in Bastad in the summer.
It was also Garin’s first match of that event, while Chardy had played one, so I’m not reading too much into this head-to-head.
If we look at the stats of these two at main level over the last three months we see that it’s Garin who’s won more points on serve (67.2% to 66.9%) and on return (33.2% to 32.9%).
Close, yes, but slightly in favour of the betting underdog, who’s also won more points on second serve (54.3% to 49.1%) and is only 1.4% behind on first serve points won – and these are all from matches played on indoor and outdoor hard.
Garin showed again versus Isner that he’s got good timing on returning a big serve and Chardy’s stats show that he’s saved a big 73% of the break points against him in those 14 matches played in the last three months.
Chardy has also lost his next match on six of the 10 prior occasions that he’s managed to beat a top-10 player in his career, so all this to me adds up to poor value on Chardy.
There were a couple of top-10 stars struggling with health and fitness on Wednesday and I wonder how Novak Djokovic and Stefanos Tsitsipas will shape up on Thursday?
Djokovic said after his struggle of a win over lucky loser Corentin Moutet: “I didn't feel health-wise 100 percent in the last couple of days, but it is what it is.”
And Tsitsipas revealed following his victory over Taylor Fritz: “I couldn't sleep last night, I went to sleep at 3.30am. I also felt a bit sick. I felt like there was no chance for me to come second match today and play the match. I had only four hours of sleep, very difficult for me, and just felt generally super exhausted, not 100 percent ready to compete. I don't know what I did to get back on court and play.”
Both may be worth opposing if they’re struggling, with Tsitsipas likely to have to make a lot of balls against Alex De Minaur, but the latter may also be fatigued after a run to the Basel final last week and a tight win over Roberto Bautista Agut on Tuesday.
Djokovic faces Kyle Edmund, who’s starting to find his form again and didn’t face a break point against Diego Schwartzman, which is impressive, and maybe if Djokovic is off colour this could be a chance for the Brit to really turn his season around at the death.
Dominic Thiem was a little fortunate to scrape past Milos Raonic on Wednesday, winning six points fewer overall and coming second in all the stat categories bar one: break points saved, in which Thiem saved 9 of the 10 he faced.
Fatigue may well be an issue for Thiem as well after Vienna and perhaps Grigor Dimitrov might go on a similarly fortuitous run this week to the one he enjoyed at the US Open.
Dimitrov once again got into David Goffin’s head (not the hardest thing to achieve, admittedly) in their match-up on Wednesday and he and Thiem have fought out some tight battles in the past, so the fresher Dimitrov may have the legs in that one.
Stan Wawrinka doesn’t look in the best of condition either, with his fott quite heavily strapped up against Marin Cilic on Wednesday to add to the back issue that forced him to withdraw from Basel.
Wawrinka should certainly have lost the second set against Cilic, but once again Cilic was unable to find either his form or his nerve when he needed them to allow Stan a 2-0 win.
That form doesn’t look good enough to beat Rafa Nadal, who Stan has lost to 19 times from 22 career meetings, but Wawrinka did beat Nadal here in Bercy back in 2015, so given Nadal’s weak record here perhaps Wawrinka could do something.
I wouldn’t like to bet on that happening though and I probably wouldn’t take Gael Monfils on with Radu Albot either, although it is tempting with Monfils a 1.28 chance.
It doesn’t look a good match-up for Albot against an opponent who can match him for movement and solidity and possesses a lot more on serve and variety and Monfils has a fair record in the price range 1.20 to 1.39.
He’s won 15 of his last 17 at main level in that price range, but the two he lost were within the last few weeks and is he fully fit? Who can tell with Monfils?
Denis Shapovalov is a possibility for underdog backers against Alexander Zverev, who put his poor showing last week in Basel down to sickness and it’s hard to assess Zverev’s win over Fernando Verdasco here in round one, as Nando was injured.
Zverev has lost five times this season when prices up between 1.30 and 1.49 and it’s certainly a possibility that Shapo could surprise the German if he plays his best stuff, but I prefer Garin and I’m only having one bet on Thursday.
Best Bet
0.5 points win Garin to beat Chardy at 2.45
