It’s been an inauspicious start to the week in Rotterdam, New York and Buenos Aires, with Franko Skugor producing a poor display against a similarly off-colour Denis Shapovalov on Tuesday.
Skugor lost the match in a 10-minute spell at the end of set one and the start of set two, with some weak play and despite breaking Shapo twice, the usually strong serving Croat was broken four times himself in a poor match.
Then David Goffin failed to serve out set one against Gael Monfils, which led to a tie break (he also led set two 4-1) and cost us the no tie breaks bet, before Taro Daniel had a shocker against Roberto Carballes Baena in Buenos Aires.
Wednesday in Rotterdam sees three finalists from last week enter the fray, with Daniil Medvedev, Marton Fucsovics, and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga all in action on day three at the Ahoy Stadium.
Given the late start it’s unlikely that the trio will struggle physically, but Medvedev did lose his only prior career encounter with Jeremy Chardy, which was on the grass of Queen’s Club last summer.
Chardy had a very good run on the green stuff last summer, but in four career matches in Rotterdam on indoor hard he’s only broken serve 4.9% of the time.
On this surface and with Medvedev in fine form right now it’s hard to see Chardy (who turned 32 on Tuesday) causing the upset, while Tsonga has a fine record in Rotterdam and unless he struggles to get himself going after winning the Montpellier title will surely be too strong for Thomas Fabbiano.
The Italian has a 3-7 record against the big servers on my list, but he’s won his last two (Copil in qualies this week and Opelka in Melbourne) and he’s beaten Gilles Muller in his time, but going on the Montpellier form Tsonga should have too much power.
The two matches I’m interesting in on Wednesday from a value point of view are the ones featuring Marton Fucsovics and Stan Wawrinka.
Martin Klizan vs Marton Fucsovics
Assuming that Fucsovics isn’t too fatigued from his run to the final in similar conditions in Sofia the Hungarian looks a fair bet as slight underdog in this opening match of the day in Rotterdam at around 10:00 UK time on Court 1.
Fucsovics didn’t play Davis Cup (Klizan did) and he had a bye into the semi finals in Sofia, so he’s only played 10 sets of tennis since Davis Cup, which is one fewer than Klizan.
It’s Fuscovics that has the better indoor hard court main level stats in the last 12 months (105.7 hold/break total plays 97.7) and the Hungarian’s all-time number in that regard is 105.5 (10-6 win/loss).
Klizan’s total is 102.4 in his last 50 main level matches (29-21 win/loss) and in their one career clash in Davis Cup in 2017 it was Fucsovics that won the rubber in four sets.
Klizan is a former champion in Rotterdam, but he’s not in that sort of form at the moment (although who can tell with Klizan) and he’s lost six of his last 10 matches when priced up as a 1.70 to 1.90 favourite at main level.
Fucsovics has a very good record as slight underdog (2.0 to 2.20), winning eight of his 11 matches at main level and all four on indoor hard (one by retirement).
On what looks a tricky day for betting I’ll risk a small investment on Fucsovics to continue that run and carry on his form from last week.
Stan Wawrinka was priced up as a 2.66 shot against Milos Raonic in Melbourne and the Canadian duly served his way to a four tie break win and the layers have made Wawrinka even bigger at around 2.90 this time.
There was just two points in it that day in Melbourne and while Raonic has had one match already in Rotterdam this week that’s the only reason I can think of to make Raonic even shorter this time.
It could be the case that Raonic serves his way narrowly past Wawrinka again, but that price looks poor and I’m tempted to take Wawrinka here, either on match odds or the handicap.
Raonic has now won the last four meetings between them, but he’s going to have to play well to keep doing it, and I certainly couldn’t touch that price on the Canadian here, with Wawrinka perhaps edging closer to his form of old at the moment.
Talking of big servers, there are two in action at the New York Open on Wednesday, with John Isner facing Bernard Tomic and Ivo Karlovic taking on Radu Albot.
I was toying with the idea of taking on Isner, who lost to Albot here a year ago and he hasn’t won a match since October last year, but Tomic’s record against big servers is unsurprisingly poor.
Tomic is 0-2 versus Isner, 10-22 on all hard courts versus the big servers in my database and he’s lost 14 of his last 17 of those matches.
That doesn’t mean he won’t win today against an Isner who’s struggled to get going early on in the season of late, but it does mean I couldn’t back Bernie to do so.
Albot and Karlovic have never met, but Albot is 2-10 versus the big servers in my list, however he has beaten Isner and Steve Johnson and he’s in good form, but 2.28 isn’t much of a price.
Best Bet
0.5 points win Fucsovics to beat Klizan at 2.07
