We were a tad unfortunate in Friday’s bet when John Isner did defeat Felix-Auger Aliassime, but the American failed by one game to cover the handicap, as his record-breaking run of tie breaks continued.
Isner now has a shot of defending his Miami Open title, but he’s got Roger Federer to get past at around 13:00 UK time on Sunday (17:00 UK).
John Isner vs Roger Federer
A year ago we were cheering on Isner as our 100-1 outright in Miami and he duly delivered his first Masters 1000 title when he defeated Alexander Zverev in a tight final, but this looks tougher for the big man.
Last year Isner only played four tie break sets in 14 at the Miami Open, but he hasn’t been in that sort of form this time around on return of serve, with just 7.8% breaks of serve this tournament so far.
He’s chalked up an amazing nine tie breaks (won all of them), which I believe is a record for one ATP World Tour tournament, and that 9-0 record in breakers this tournament is the most Isner has won at an ATP event (beating his previous best of seven).
And we can probably expect more breakers on Sunday, given that Federer and Isner have gone to at least 10 games in nine of the last 10 sets they’ve contested at all levels (seven of them were tie breaks).
Looking at the career series stats between this pair we find that in all seven main level clashes Federer has held serve 97.2% of the time, with Isner failing to break Federer in any of their last four main level meetings (on indoor hard, outdoor hard and grass).
Indeed, the only time that Isner has ever broken the Federer serve was when they met on clay in Davis Cup in 2012 when Isner won, so combined with his lack of ability to break serve this week in Miami the signs aren’t great for Isner breaking Federer on Sunday.
The Swiss has been able to break Isner 12% of the time in their seven clashes, but that rises to 16.9% of the time on outdoor hard (held 100% of the time on outdoor hard, too).
In terms of tie breaks that the pair have contested in their career series on all surfaces it’s even, with both men winning four.
Federer is 9-2 win/loss in finals against the big servers in my database, with the two losses coming against Milos Raonic in the opening weeks of 2016 and back in 2014 when Jo-Wilfried Tsonga had his career week in Toronto. Tie breaks featured in eight of those 11 matches.
As far as current form is concerned, Federer has had very few problems dispatching young guns Daniil Medvedev this week and he hasn’t dropped a set in Miami this year since a slow start against Radu Albot in his opening match.
As ever with an Isner match we’re just guessing as to how well he’ll serve on the day, but for me I’m happy to have a small interest in Federer covering the aces handicap in this one.
Only once in their eight career meetings (I’m including their most recent clash indoors in Laver Cup for the purposes of this comparison) has Isner covered an aces handicap of -11.5 and he hasn’t been close the rest of the time.
The one occasion was at the Paris Masters (often a tournament that Federer either doesn’t play at all or struggles with the timing of after Basel), but in their other career clashes Isner has hit eight, two, one, five, two and two more aces than Federer (Federer actually hit more aces than Isner in their 2012 Indian Wells final).
Discounting the Laver Cup clash (in which Isner hit 17 aces and Federer 15) Isner hits 0.88 aces per game in this career series and Federer 0.61, so that 11.5 aces start for Federer looks big.
In terms of the match result I’d expect Federer to come through here, perhaps in straight sets or by -2.5 games, but the aces handicap looks the bet.
Best Bet
1 point win Federer +11.5 to hit the most aces at 1.88
