My one bet of the day on Wednesday was a 2.50 winner in the form of Andreas Seppi over Nick Kyrgios in Zhuhai, with the latter fading away (to the surprise of no-one) after losing the opening set tie break.
But it’s been a really disappointing week on the outrights, with Miomir Kecmanovic summing up our week by losing the opening set against Albert Ramos from *5-4, 40-0 up and fading badly to a straight sets loss after that blow.
Thursday’s play in Chengdu and Zhuhai has 14 matches from round two on the schedule and the weather forecast suggests a full day’s play is likely in Chengdu, with a cloudy day of 24C and very little wind in prospect (Zhuhai is essentially played indoors under a roof).
John Isner vs Egor Gerasimov
If you’d backed Isner the last 16 times that he was priced up between 1.50 and 1.69 at main level you’d be out of pocket, with the big man having won only eight of those 16 matches.
And of those 16 matches Isner only won four in straight sets, so he’s not been exactly a smooth ride for punters backing Isner at this sort of price.
Thursday seems him take on Gerasimov, who I thought might well face a decent test in round one against Zhe Li, but having toughed that one out the Belarusian should fancy his chances here.
He’s certainly had more time to acclimatise than Isner, who comes here from playing Laver Cup on indoor hard in Geneva and as we saw with the likes of Nick Kyrgios and Lucas Pouille it’s not easy to start off playing well right away on this sort of time difference.
It may be a little easier for someone like Isner, who relies so heavily on the serve and often scrapes through matches without playing particularly well off the ground, but we’ll have to wait and see how he shapes up.
He didn’t play the Asian swing at all last year and similarly he has a baby on the way in about six weeks, so it wouldn’t be much of a surprise if Gerasimov were the more motivated here.
Having faced down the big-serving Matteo Berrettini in St. Petersburg, where he played very well to make the semis Gerasimov is up inside the top-100 in the rankings and will surely want to kick on from there now.
As well as beating Berrettini (twice in three meetings) he also took down Sam Querrey on a hard court in Los Cabos when Querrey was defending champion, so a big server shouldn’t faze him.
A tight one seems likely and in the circumstances and with Isner’s weak record in this price range in mind Gerasimov is one underdog option for Thursday.
Other options include: Dan Evans, Joao Sousa, and Alexander Bublik, but I’m not wild about the prices on any of them.
Dan Evans is certainly capable of getting the better of Grigor Dimitrov, who is difficult to price up on the back of his surprise run to the semi finals of the US Open, having endured a horrible season up to that point.
Dimitrov has won only three of his last 11 main level matches (going back to March 2018) when priced up in the 1.40 to 1.60 price range, which is clearly an awful record and assuming that he’ll kick on from New York is surely fraught with danger.
The Bulgarian got lucky in several of those matches at the US Open (injuries to Borna Coric, Roger Federer and Seppi just returning from hip infiltration) and it’s far from certain that Dimitrov will return to his best level now as if his drop to number 78 in the world didn’t happen.
I said yesterday that the extra day’s delay in Joao Sousa’s clash with Hyeon Chung made the Portuguese’s chances better and he came through in three sets as underdog against the Korean.
Playing aggressively and confidently Sousa has every chance of carrying on his recent good form against Felix Auger-Aliassime, who hasn’t played since a heavy defeat to Denis Shapovalov at the US Open.
FAA has been unable to find his best form since Queen’s Club and Sousa certainly has his chances on Thursday, but a shade better than evens doesn’t really appeal to me.
Alexander Bublik’s unusual play style and big game in these conditions could well pose problems for Jordan Thompson, who seems like he enjoys rhythm in his game, but again the price on the underdog is a bit too short for me.
Elsewhere, Benoit Paire is tempting at 2.60 against Pablo Carreno Busta, who Paire has beaten nine times (and the last five straight) and this one is priced as it is due to Paire being ill last week and saying he probably wouldn’t play Chengdu.
Perhaps Paire has recovered by now, but the layers are fancying the likelihood of a tank from Paire here at these prices.
Fernando Verdasco interested me at the initial 1.72 showing against Cristian Garin, but now that it’s been corrected to 1.58 I’m not so keen.
In Zhuhai, I thought Andy Murray might be a bit shorter than 3.05 against Alex De Minaur, but I suppose the thinking is that the Brit will struggle to back up his long match with Tennys Sandgren in his current condition.
I’m a little tempted by the 2-1 win for Stefanos Tsitsipas over Adrian Mannarino, with the Greek another one coming from Laver Cup and Mannarino a more than capable opponent.
Mann is rarely at his best indoors though and that’s basically the conditions in Zhuhai, but 2-1 to Tsitsipas at 3.80 is a fair option in that one.
I said yesterday that Soon-Woo Kwon had his chances against a jet-lagged Lucas Pouille, but I passed due to the price being a bit short on Kwon and it may be again in what could be a tricky one versus Damir Dzumhur.
Dzumhur has had a poor season, with many injury problems, but he’s qualified and progressed nicely this week and his unusual style may make Kwon think a bit.
Best Bet
0.5 points win Gerasimov to beat Isner at 2.50
