In hindsight I chose the wrong bet in the Matteo Berrettini versus Kyle Edmund clash on Monday, with Edmund getting the good start I wanted from him, but it was too good.
Edmund won the first set a sizeable price, rather than merely taking it long to a 12th or 13th game and once again Berrettini failed to win a main level match indoors by a comfortable margin, taking it by just one point in total overall.
At least our outright, Marton Fucsovics, moved forward on the day, taking down Lorenzo Sonego in Vienna, but it was a bad day for the underdogs, who went 1-8 win/loss on the day, the only winner being Henri Laaksonen, who was 1-7 in Basel before beating a lacklustre Benoit Paire.
Tuesday’s play in Vienna starts at around 13:00 UK time when two veterans of the game face each other for the 10th time in all and Gilles Simon hasn’t been able to overcome the disadvantage on serve that he has against Feli Lopez in this career series.
Lopez has won seven of their nine encounters and the last five in a row, so he’s a fairly obvious underdog option at 2.10 in this one, purely on the head-to-head.
Five of those seven wins for Lopez have come on grass, though, so it has been a series played mainly on Lopez’s terms.
I was a little surprised to see Aljaz Bedene as short as 1.65 against Guido Pella in the first match of the day on the Next Gen court, but while Pella did win their only career clash (on clay in Umag last year) Bedene should have won it, as he was a set and a double break up in that one.
Pella took an age to get used to Bedene’s flat hitting in that one and the Slovenian’s serve has been firing indoors lately, with Bedene winning 97% of his first serve points and hitting 15 aces in 10 service games.
That advantage on serve might be enough for Bedene, but he won’t want to get drawn into another long affair with the left-handed Argentine after what happened last time they met.
Nikoloz Basilashvili (arm/shoulder) and Fernando Verdasco (knee) are both injury concerns and that adds another layer of uncertainty to a match that quite honestly had ‘avoid’ written all over it in any case.
Hyeon Chung’s form is virtually impossible to predict, with the Korean showing some of his old form one week and then offering very little the next, so it’s hard to trust him even against a rusty Milos Raonic.
Chung is 6-12 versus the big servers in my list, so he’s even unpredictable in that sense, having beaten John Isner, Berrettini and Marin Cilic, but he’s yet to come close to winning a set in two matches on indoor hard against Kevin Anderson and Marius Copil.
If Raonic is fit his price looks sort of okay, but after no ‘proper’ matches since the summer due to hip and thigh issues it looks one to avoid all told.
My 33-1 chance Philipp Kohlschreiber takes on young starlet Jannik Sinner in what might be a tricky one for the veteran German, but I’m hopeful his usually more determined performances in Austria and Germany will see him through one with an experienced display.
Dominic Thiem’s title at home in Kitzbuhel earlier this season will probably take the pressure off him a bit in Vienna, where he’s struggled at times, but Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in round one could be tricky.
With Thiem serving strongly lately but still lacking something on return against big servers the over games look tempting here versus a server like Tsonga and over 27.5 games at 2.55 or over 30.5 games at 3.40 look the wagers of interest here, with breaks unlikely to come easily.
Moving on to Basel and the underdogs there that could potentially cause problems or defeat the favourites include Alexei Popyrin, Cristian Garin, Marius Copil, and Juan Ignacio Londero.
Popyrin’s price has come in now so that he shares favouritism with Fabio Fognini and perhaps that’s not a surprise given the poor effort that Fogna put in last week against the almost retired Janko Tipsarevic.
Fog is only 5-8 win/loss in Vienna as well and it wouldn’t a great surprise at all if he lost, hence the pricing.
We already have Marius Copil at a huge price in the outrights, so we don’t need to be backing him today as well, but Londero and Garin are interesting propositions.
Juan Ignacio Londero takes on Richard Gasquet who hasn’t looked anywhere near his best lately and he may well be struggling physically again, probably with the usual back problems.
His serve was tame against David Goffin in Shanghai and he won only 36% of his second serve points against Soon Woo Kwon last week in Antwerp, increasing his poor record since the Cincinnati quarter finals in August to 1-6 win/loss.
The one win was in a final set against Marcel Granollers and given that he’s been beaten by Londero (admittedly on clay) in both of their career clashes (both in 2019) this doesn’t look like it’ll be easy at all for the Gasman, whose movement doesn’t seen right again lately.
He did look back to his old self in Cincy, but since then nothing and Londero, while predominantly a clay courter, isn’t one that doesn’t put the effort in away from the red dirt.
He’s impressed in several hard court matches this summer and the only players to have beaten him in straight sets in 12 hard court (indoor and out) matches this summer/autumn are Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer.
Those that have either lost to Londero or been taken the distance include Andy Murray, Matteo Berrettini, Sam Querrey, and Jordan Thompson – all pretty decent hard court players indeed.
He lost from match point up against Lukas Rosol last week in Moscow and we’re almost certain to get a full effort for our money from Londero, especially with the knowledge that he’s able to outmanoeuvre Gasquet on clay.
Londero +3.5 games looks the bet in this one, but 1.68 is a tad short, so I’ll risk the win for Londero at 2.55.
I was very disappointed in Reilly Opelka last week in Stockholm, with the big man clearly second best in defeat to Stefano Travaglia, and he’ll need a lot better than that if he’s to beat Cristian Garin.
We also had Garin last week and he should have taken down Andreas Seppi in straight sets, but failed with two match points at 1.07 in-play and with 8 of his 12 break points in all.
Garin won more first serve points than Seppi in that one and he shouldn’t fear Opelka, having beaten John Isner on a lively hard court in Cincy and he’s also taken down Kyle Edmund and Fernando Verdasco in quick conditions in Chengdu.
Garin won 89% of his first serve points against Isner that day in Cincy and unless Opelka improves on serve and off the ground this might be a tough day for Opelka.
Best Bets
0.5 points win over 27.5 games in Tsonga/Thiem at 2.55
0.5 points win Londero to beat Gasquet at 2.55
