Debrief

 

At the time of writing we’re in a very good position with our big-priced outright from last week, Casper Ruud in Buenos Aires, with Ruud a 1.15 chance in the final here, having opened up at 33-1 with Unibet.

This week there are another three events to go at and this is usually a good week for a big-priced winner or finalist or two.

 

Conditions and trends

 

The Rio Open is the prestige tournament of the week in terms of size and stature and it’s been a pretty good one for value seekers lately, too, with 66-1 Laslo Djere beating 50-1 Felix Auger-Aliassime last year and 33-1 Pablo Cuevas beating 80-1 Guido Pella in 2016.

It’s played usually in high heat and humidity and retirements are fairly frequent here on medium paced clay that’s usually a shade quicker and higher bouncing than Buenos Aires.

The balls (Head) are usually different from Buenos Aires (Wilson), too, and no player – not even Rafael Nadal – has won Buenos Aires and Rio back-to-back yet or even made the final of Buenos Aires and Rio back-to-back.

Rio has been part of the ATP Tour since 2014 and as yet no qualifier has made it past the quarter finals, while Nadal is the only number one seed to have made the final in its six years on the tour.

Over at Delray Beach the number one seeds also fare poorly, with Mardy Fish back in 2009 the last top seeded winner of the Delray Beach Open and in the last four years we’ve had winners at 50-1, 66-1 and 20-1 and finalists at 50-1 (twice) and 110-1.

Qualifiers are worth watching here, as qualifiers have made the final three times in the last seven years at Delray Beach and Dan Evans very nearly won it as one last year.

It’s usually played on a Plexipave outdoor hard surface with Penn balls and it’s high bouncing and quite slow here, with the wind often a factor as well.

In Marseille at the Open 13 conditions usually favour first strike tennis on a pacy Gerfloor indoor surface with Technifibre X-One balls and attacking players tend to go well in Marseille.

It’s ranked highly in terms of service games held and while there has been the occasional big-priced winner or finalist lately there’s never been a qualifier in the Marseille final in over a quarter of a century of it being on the tour.

Only twice in the last decade has it been won by the number one seed though, so this is one week on the tour where top seeds definitely don’t usually have it their own way.
 

Open 13 Provence

The first quarter of the Marseille draw is very interesting indeed, with Daniil Medvedev likely to face another challenging opening round match, as he did last week when he lost to Vasek Pospisil.

I said last week that it’s not a given that Medvedev will carry on in 2020 in the manner he did in the latter half of 2019 and a draw against (probably) Jannik Sinner is very far from easy.

Sinner is a definite contender this week, as is Karen Khachanov, who won here as a 66-1 chance only two years ago, but he hasn’t been able to recapture his old form for some time now and he hasn’t made a final now since his Bercy glory 15 months ago.

I wouldn’t be stunned if Khachanov lost to Aljaz Bedene first up, with the Slovenian having made the final in very similar conditions to this in Metz only five months ago.

Should Sinner beat Medvedev and Bedene beat Khachanov Bedene would probably face Gilles Simon (3-0 head-to-head Bedene) and then Sinner in the last eight, so given that the Slovenian is holding serve over 90% of the time indoors at the moment he can’t be discounted.

The one that’s interesting in the second quarter is Mikhail Kukushkin, who made the final at 66-1 last year and who enjoys the quick conditions, where his flat hitting can prosper.

Felix Auger-Aliassime spent much of Rotterdam coughing and may well not be up to it this week, so Kuku has a live chance at a fair price, but he looked outmatched by David Goffin when they met in fast conditions in Shanghai, so I’ll probably pass on the Kazakh.

In the bottom half I’m happy to take defending champion Stefanos Tsitsipas on, with the Greek struggling with a shoulder problem in Rotterdam and not always guaranteed to bring his best level to the smaller tournaments these days anyway.

Quarter three looks packed with possibilities, with all seven of the players capable of a run this week, but at the prices I don’t mind giving Fucsovics a chance at 40-1.

The Hungarian was in prime form in Melbourne and probably should have done better against Roger Federer after a good start and he had a tough draw last week when he could have won in two sets against Roberto Bautista Agut.

Conditions here playing quick should suit Fucsovics and while his draw is undoubtedly tough he’s the form player, with Denis Shapovalov and Benoit Paire struggling lately and Marin Cilic a new dad and Filip Krajinovic coming off two long weeks.

Quarter four, which has Tsitsipas in it may come down to yet another clash between the Greek and Hubert Hurkacz, who should have taken Tsitsipas down last week in Rotterdam.

Vasek Pospisil is also a danger in this quarter, while Richard Gasquet, if fit, could pose problems for Tsitsipas, too.
 

Delray Beach Open

Three of the semi finalists in Delray Beach last year were Dan Evans, Radu Albot and Mackenzie McDonald and in conditions that are usually slow and windy I like the idea of siding with good movers at this tournament.

The first quarter of the draw looks very competitive indeed and incredibly tough to call, with all eight players in it capable of making the final on their best form.

Former champ Frances Tiafoe looks miles away from his best form right now, while Nick Kyrgios showed little here a year ago and Tommy Paul didn’t look fit last week after his exploits in Australia.

Tennys Sandgren seems to only show up for majors, but any of Kyle Edmund, Miomir Kecmanovic, Jordan Thompson or Ugo Humbert could go deep from this tough quarter of the draw.

The second quarter is interesting, with Taylor Fritz having done little here over the years in a 3-4 record and the obvious alternative to Fritz is Yoshihito Nishioka, but he got injured last week and his round one opponent this week, John Millman, has pulled out of the last two tournaments with a shoulder injury.

I’m not sure I can see Jiri Vesely prevailing somewhere as windy as this, so maybe this section is one that may hold an opportunity for a qualifier or the one that’s a bit of a wild card: Brandon Nakashima.

He was close against Tiafoe in Dallas last week, but I’d probably want bigger than 50-1 about him at the moment.  

In the bottom half of the draw Soon Woo Kwon fits the bill as someone that moves very well and he has a fair draw in a section that has Adrian Mannarino, Ryan Harrison, Damir Dzumhur, Mackenzie McDonald, Yasutaka Uchiyama, Reilly Opelka and a qualifier in it.

McDonald is only just back from long-term injury, as is Harrison, while Dzumhur is 6-14 win/loss on hard courts this past 12 months and Uchiyama doesn’t look up to going deep at this level at the moment.

So, maybe it will be a good quarter for Opelka to be in, but he didn’t look in the best of form in New York, where he didn’t have the wind to bother him, and Kwon has already shown he can handle big servers.

Kwon took down Milos Raonic indoors last week as a 4.44 chance and he may need to go through Opelka and Raonic again this week, but at a price of 25-1 isn’t big enough for me, so instead the 40-1 about Mannarino appeals.

The Frenchman doesn’t appear to have the sort of game to do well in the wind, with his very flat hitting sometimes a problem when it gets gusty, but Peter Gojowczyk made the final here and you can’t get much more of a flatter hitter than the German.

Mannarino started his season slowly after injury stopped him from winter training, but he was close against Pablo Carreno Busta last week and he’s won seven of his last 11 matches at Delray Beach, so he knows the place well and has gone well here.

The opening match against Kwon will be tough, but Kwon is 1-7 versus top-100 lefties in his career so far and I like the price on Mannarino.

The stumbling block may be either Opelka or Raonic, as Mannarino does sometimes falter against big servers, but he has beaten Raonic, Cilic and Querrey on hard courts, so I’ll take the chance.

Raonic heads up the final quarter and he looks a fair favourite to make the semis from it, but he did last week as well and he lost first up to Kwon, so Raonic is not for me at a short price.

Defending champion Radu Albot hasn’t played since the ATP Cup in week one due to a shoulder injury and he hasn’t won since last season, so it looks a tall order for him this week.

Albot looks to have a gimme (if Albot is fit) in round one in Jack Sock, who hasn’t looked fit enough to grace a tennis court for some time and Sock seems more interested in doubles these days.

Steve Johnson has a good record here and is a possibility, but he doesn’t look the player he was at his best a few years ago.

Andreas Seppi has made only one career final on outdoor hard at main level in his long career and he went deep indoors in New York last week and he has a weak record against Raonic.

Cedrik-Marcel Stebe has never won back-to-back matches on outdoor hard at main level (he’s only done it once on all hard courts at this level), while Henri Laaksonen hasn’t done it since 2017.

 

Rio Open

Twelve months ago the world number 90 who had lost his previous four matches and hadn’t beaten anyone ranked better than 180 since the previous October, rocked up here and won his maiden title at the Rio Open. His name was Laslo Djere.

Fast-forward a year and Djere has pulled out through injury, but the world number 89, Alejandro Davidovich Fokina, is playing and probably has a similar sort of chance as Djere did last season.

Djere didn’t have to play the semi finals at al then; it was just his week – and looking at the bottom half of the 2020 Rio draw there’s a big-priced finalist in there somewhere, most probably.

Albert Ramos has made one semi final here (no better) and tends to perform his best in events played at altitude, while Dusan Lajovic has lost eight of his last 10 main level matches in South America and made just one semi final in this continent.

Borna Coric is in woeful form still and has lost 10 of his last 11 matches, so as far as seeds are concerned it looks like it’ll probably be down to Cristian Garin to come up with the goods.

Garin looks the most likely winner of this half, but he’s too short for me, and the fourth quarter of the draw, which has Lajovic, Coric, Marco Cecchinato, Leo Mayer, Lorenzo Sonego, Thiago Seyboth Wild, Juan Ignacio Londero and Alejandro Davidovich Fokina it looks wide open.

And it’s world number 89 Davidovich Fokina that looks worth a huge-priced punt to me.

I’ve already overlooked Coric and Lajovic and we can add Mayer to that list, with Mayer having a 0-4 win/loss record in Rio, while Cecchinato looks a shadow of the player that reached number 16 in the world a year ago.

Sonego has lost his last 10 matches in a row (won only one of 12 since winning the Genova Challenger last September, beating Davidovich Fokina in the final) while Seyboth Wild hasn’t won any match since last November and Londero may take a while to recover from that epic choke last week.

Any of them could bounce back to form of course, as Djere did last year, and this section is anyone’s, but it looks the place for a punt and the talented but erratic Davidovich Fokina is as good as any of these at his best and is worth a small interest at 66-1.

In the top half of the draw I’m tempted to take a punt on Fernando Verdasco, who says he loves it here and in his only appearance in Rio he made the final in 2018, beating Thiem, Fognini and Mayer before losing out to Schwartzman in the title match.

He’d have to go through Thiem again this time, but he’s won four of their five career clashes, so it’s hardly impossible, and it may take the Austrian a bit of time to get used to the clay again.

Thiem lost first up as a 1.18 chance here last year against Djere and while that looks highly unlikely this time against Felipe Meligeni Rodrigues Alves, there’s a chance that maybe Casper Ruud could stun Thiem in the quarters.

It’s hard to see anyone else in the top half beating Thiem, with the possible exception of a peak form Guido Pella or Pablo Cuevas, but Cuevas’ bottle looks gone these days and Pella looked injured last week in Buenos Aires.

In any case, Verdasco has a great record against Cuevas, so he looks the one in the top half, but 11.0 is a poor price and I'd want double that to get involved with Verdasco. 

The likely outcome on paper is a Thiem versus Garin final, but rarely if ever does it work out like that in Rio, so for now I’ll just take a punt on a bigger priced runner and possibly top up in the next few days. 

 

Conclusion

 

I'll take Mannarino in Delray Beach at a nice price and Fucsovics in Marseille at the same price, with a punt on Bedene as well at even bigger odds, while for now I'll just take Davidovich Fokina in Rio. 

 

Best Bets

 

0.5 points each-way Mannarino to win Delray Beach at 41.0
0.5 points win Bedene to win Marseille at 51.0
0.5 points each-way Fucsovics to win Marseille at 41.0
0.5 points win Davidovich Fokina in Rio at 67.0