Friday was another good day for us on the daily bets when Radu Albot took down Marcos Baghdatis as underdog in Montpellier, but there was frustration on the outrights, as Jaume Munar failed with all 12 break points he created against Federico Delbonis in Cordoba.
It’s semi finals day on Saturday and there’s one bet I like the idea of taking on today at the Sofia Open.
Matteo Berrettini vs Marton Fucsovics
I’m happy to side with the Hungarian as underdog in this opening semi final of the day in Sofia, with Berrettini likely to be feeling a bit leggy after his busy week.
The Italian had a long journey back from India, where he was on Davis Cup duty and has come through three tight matches in Sofia so far – two three setters and a tight two sets.
Indeed, all three of his matches have been close, with Berrettini scoring four more points than Denis Istomin and Karen Khachanov and seven more than Fernando Verdasco.
The layers may well be placing rather too much emphasis here on the names that Berrettini has beaten in Khachanov and Verdasco, with neither of those two playing anywhere near their best in defeat.
Verdasco showed poor body language for much of his loss to Berrettini, while Khachanov was way down on his best level and it could well be a simple case of Fucsovics having more in the tank for this match.
The Hungarian didn’t play Davis Cup and had a day off on Friday when slated quarter final opponent Roberto Bautista Agut withdrew from the tournament due to illness and in what looks a pretty even contest his likely higher energy levels could win the day.
This pair have only met once previously (in the Irving Challenger on outdoor hard last season) and Berrettini won that one, which has probably also contributed to the Italian being favoured today.
I’m not a massive fan just yet of Berrettini on return of serve, while Fucsovics has been very good in terms of creating chances this week and he has a very good record indoors at main level generally on return of serve.
He’s created a whopping 1.17 break point chances per game so far in Sofia and while 23 of those opportunities came against Yannick Maden, whose serve is weaker than Berrettini’s, Fucsovics is still on 30% break of serve in his last 10 matches on this surface, while Berrettini is on just 12.6.
That means that Fucsovic’s combined hold/break total is almost 10% better than Berrettini’s (Berettini’s is only from six career main level matches though) and I like his price today.
In the other semi final it should be an intriguing match-up between Gael Monfils and Daniil Medvedev, both of whom impressed on Friday, and I’m leaning towards the Russian in this one, with the prices looking about right there.
It’s a rare day indeed that I fancy a bet in a Monfils match and that’ll be the case again today and it’ll be interesting to see how (if) he’s able to counter the flat, low bouncing strokes of the Russian on this court.
Over in Montpellier it looks very much like the Open Sud de France will once again be won by one of the favourites, with Jo-Wilfried Tsonga to surely have too much power for Radu Albot and similarly Tomas Berdych (unless he’s tired from yesterday’s tough match) likely to be too strong for Pierre-Hugues Herbert.
Rain washed out the last match of the day in Cordoba on Friday, so only one of the semi finals at the Cordoba Open is set for today and the tournament will get one Argentinean finalist at least, with Juan Ignacio Londero taking on Federico Delbonis.
Delbonis beat Londero in Buenos Aires comfortably in 2017 at Challenger level, but there’ll be some nerves around in this one for sure, and Delbonis has actually lost his last three matches when priced up as a sub-1.30 favourite.
Albot beat him on clay in Lyon last season as a 4.21 chance, while 6.53 shot Konstantin Kravchuk took him down in straight sets at the 2017 French Open, and world number 667 Reda El Amrani was a set up on him as a 12.74 poke when Delbonis retired in Marrakech, also in 2017.
Best Bet
0.5 points win Fucsovics to beat Berrettini at 2.28
