It was quite a day at the Monte-Carlo Country Club on Saturday, as both favourites were beaten in the semi finals and we landed ourselves a handy 3.35 winner in one of them
In traditional fashion when I opt for a +1.5 sets bet on the underdog they usually win easily in two and that’s what happened when Fabio Fognini defeated Rafa Nadal, almost bagelling the King of Clay in set two.
I said yesterday that the wind might play a part in Saturday’s matches and it was almost unplayable for a time during the first semi final, but Nadal was about right in his assessment of his day: “I probably played one of the worst matches on clay in 14 years.”
Daniil Medvedev wasn’t much better against Dusan Lajovic and so now we have a 300-1 outright (Lajovic) against a 200-1 shot (Fognini) in the final of a Masters 1000.
As you can imagine, the fact that I didn’t really consider either of them is annoying, but I can’t envisage that anyone would have genuinely fancied Lajovic to make the final this week. It is mildly annoying that I advised Fognini at a huge price in the previous Masters 1000 event last month, though.
The wind that’s been battering Monte-Carlo isn’t going anywhere, according to the forecast, with 29-30kph gusts expected between 14:00 and 18:00 local time on Sunday (the final is set for not before 14:30 local time).
Dusan Lajovic vs Fabio Fognini
Lajovic has shown himself to be one man capable of handling the strong winds this week in Monte-Carlo, but who’d have thought that the Serb’s first main level title match would be a M1000?
He’s always been one of those that you look at in a clay draw and think ‘yeah, if he puts it together the whole week he’s got half a chance,’ but I couldn’t see him making a final at this level, with Djokovic, Nadal, Thiem and co. in the draw.
The wind has played its part in this run, but some of the opposition (Thiem, Medvedev) have almost handed him wins on a plate in tough conditions.
Medvedev was 5-1 up and 1.16 for the win on Saturday and then lost the next 10 games in a row in a dismal collapse that sees Lajovic take on Fognini in a match with an intriguing backstory.
Fognini’s former coach, Jose Perlas, who worked with the Italian for five years, has been with Lajovic for the last couple of years (also Lajovic trains with Fabio’s former fitness coach), so he should be able to provide some insight into the mind and tactics of the Italian.
This is only the third time since 2006 that a M1000 final has been contested by two non-top-10 players and can anyone honestly see anything other than a match of high drama in the offing on Sunday?
When Fognini has beaten Nadal on three previous occasions he’s sunk without trace in his next match: Feli Lopez (US Open 2015), Pablo Andujar (Barcelona 2015) and David Ferrer (Rio 2015) all beat Fognini in straight sets.
Given the current physical condition and age of Fognini this might well be his only chance of winning the sort of big title that his talent deserves, but if he sees it like that as well he may well start very nervously.
He didn’t win more than three games in any of his opening sets in those three post-Nadal matches in 2015 and on that basis alone the 2.48 on Lajovic winning the opener is worthy of consideration.
Rarely does Fabio do things the easy way in finals anyway, with only three straight sets wins for the Italian in his last dozen main level finals and five of his last seven have gone to three sets.
Fabio doesn’t have the best of tour records when he’s been priced up between 1.50 and 1.70, losing 13 of his last 20 and when he’s been priced up as favourite at any price in a main level final he’s 5-5 win/loss (5-2 on clay) and four of the last five of those have gone to a deciding set, too.
On an occasion like this, which is the biggest match of either man’s career much of the player performance data goes out of the window and even more so when we consider that this match will likely be played in very strong wind.
This will be about which of them will hold their nerve the better and neither man has been convincing in that department over the years.
There’s more than a hint of guesswork about this one in these circumstances and my feel is that Fabio will probably win it in a dramatic three.
Best Bet
0.5 points win Fognini to win 2-1 at 3.90
