We’re back to regular tour action this week and our three ATP 250 tournaments are very much of interest to me: not least because Bastad and Umag in particular feature a high percentage of underdog winners and also because Newport is on grass.
The Swedish Open in Bastad ranks as the second best tournament of the entire season in terms of frequency of underdog winners over the last six years, with a whopping 42% of the betting underdogs winning.
It’s very slow here and rather windy too, so holding serve isn’t easy, and there are very few tie breaks in Bastad, with the 21% average over the last six years making it the tournament with the fewest tie break matches of the whole season.
So, almost 80% of the matches haven’t featured a breaker in the last six years in Bastad and lots of underdogs win, so hopefully there’ll be an opportunity or two.
The Croatia Open Umag has had an average of 37% of underdogs win in the last six years and 28% of its matches have featured a tie break, while in Newport on the grass, 33% of the betting underdogs have won, with 41% of the matches featuring a breaker.
Monday’s card in Bastad only has two matches on it and each looks a pick ‘em, but I’m happy to take a chance on one in Umag.
Marco Cecchinato vs Aljaz Bedene
At first glance these prices look questionable, with Bedene favoured to beat the defending Umag champion and a man who’s won three main level clay titles in the last year or so.
Indeed, Cecchinato only dropped one set here in Umag in his title run (and that was the first one of the week) and in all matches at this tournament he’s won eight of his 10.
So, clearly he enjoys playing here and will get a lot of support, as the Italians tend to do in Umag, yet he’s underdog against the rather limited Bedene, who’s yet to even win a set in a main level final.
There are probably three reasons for the prices: the emphatic head-to-head of 6-0 to Bedene, the lack of recent form of Cecchinato and presumably the ‘home advantage’ of Bedene, with this event basically being his home one, situated as it is on the Slovenian border.
But only one of the six matches played between the pair was in the last 27 months and Bedene was a strong favourite for all of the first five.
The most recent one came earlier in the season just a matter of days after Cecchinato had won Buenos Aires, so that one can be overlooked as well for reasons of fatigue.
The ‘home advantage’ doesn’t stack up either, as Bedene has only once won back-to-back matches in the main draw here – and that was back in 2013 and he lost as a 1.12 chance here as well in 2016 – so playing ‘at home’ hasn’t helped him yet.
Cecchinato has been struggling for form of late, but a return here, where he’ll want to retain his ranking points and clearly enjoys playing, might well give him that boost he needs.
Bedene hasn’t exactly been in form either, with just two quarter finals in his last 24 tournaments, so I’m happy to risk Cecchinato breaking his duck against Bedene today.
Bedene hasn’t even reached the 100 mark in his main level clay service hold/clay total for the last 12 months (96.6 made up of 71.2% holds and 25.4% breaks) and he wins 36% of his matches on clay versus top-50 ranked opponents.
They aren’t the sort of numbers I’d be after for a 1.81 shot against a player like Cecchinato (102.9 hold/break total in the last 12 months) and odds-against about the Italian suits me.
I’ll take an outright look at the Hall of Fame Championships in Newport when qualifying has finished, as there are a few in the qualie draw that could go well this week, but today they have five main draw matches on the card.
It would be rather ironic if after we backed him outright in Antalya and he followed that up with a fine at Wimbledon that Bernard Tomic went well this week in Newport.
That said it also wouldn’t be a shock if he lost as a 1.40 chance against Ilya Ivashka today, who hasn’t played a main level match since April, due to a knee problem.
Two layers priced up Ivo Karlovic at an astonishing 500-1 to win Newport this week, so I’ll be happy if that happens, and he has a very winnable one today against Guido Andreozzi, whose record on grass is 2-8 win/loss at all levels.
On his old grass form Denis Istomin looks big at 2.88 against Tennys Sandgren, but I took a small chance on him at Wimbledon against Cam Norrie and the Uzbek’s movement was terrible, suggesting he’s carrying some sort of injury.
Perhaps the one with most potential as underdog in Newport today is Prajnesh Gunneswaran, who can play a bit on grass, as he showed again in Antalya when he beat Janko Tipsarevic and took the eventual champion Lorenzo Sonego to 7-5 in the third.
The level of Marcel Granollers these days is hard to predict, but 1.38 about him at main level seems rather short – the last time he was 1.40 or shorter at main level was in 2017 on clay in Marrakech against Amine Ahouda – and he lost as a 1.04 chance.
Best Bet
1 point win Cecchinato to beat Bedene at 2.0
