We didn’t get much of a performance from Mischa Zverev on Monday in Marrakech, but I still think we had to take a small chance on him at that price.
As it transpired, the worst of all worlds happened on day one, with the only underdog winner being the one that took down one of my outrights, as Guido Andreozzi defeated Albert Ramos.
And the two underdogs I suggested in Houston – Marcel Granollers and Christian Garin – both won.
History suggests a few more underdog winners on Tuesday, with 11 matches set for day two in Marrakech and there were five underdog winners on this corresponding day a year ago.
The field is very strong this year though and the one that stands out as possible option for underdog backers is the second match of the day on Court Central.
Malek Jaziri vs Robin Haase
Jaziri won the penultimate clash between this pair on a slow hard court where the balls fly in Dubai last season and he should also have come out on top in their most recent clash as well.
That was in qualies for the Paris Masters in November and Jaziri had a match point on his own serve to take the win, but failed, and Haase edged that one a few games later, 7-5 in the third, in a match where Jaziri won one more point overall.
Jaziri isn’t usually regarded as a fine exponent of clay court tennis, but his stats are very similar to those of Haase over their last 50 main level matches each on this surface.
The Tunisian’s service hold/break total is 96.7, while Haase’s is 97.5 and if we just take matches played in the last 12 months on clay at main level we find that Jaziri’s hold/break total is 103.5 compared to the 98.5 of Haase.
This also isn’t often a good time of year for Haase, who is 2-6 win/loss at the Grand Prix Hassan II and he’s lost eight of his last 10 matches in Monte-Carlo.
Indeed, Haase only won two of his eight matches in the spring clay swing last year and he was beaten in straight sets by Dustin Brown in the Sophia Antipolis Challenger last week.
Looking back further into Haase’s record in this part of the season we find that only twice has he recorded back-to-back wins on the clay swing since 2014 and he’s lost 15 of his last 21 main level matches played on clay at this time of year.
In contrast, Jaziri has won nine of his last 14 main level matches during this swing and he made the quarter finals here a year ago, beating both Marton Fucsovics and Zverev as underdog in each match.
Another player who’s done well in Marrakech in the past is Jiri Vesely, who has twice been a semi finalist here, and while his current form is poor I couldn’t discount him against Fabio Fognini, who’s lost six of his last seven matches (lost all four on clay since winning Bastad last summer).
As ever with Fabio, much depends on his effort levels on the day, but Vesely did beat the Italian at Wimbledon last summer and with good memories of Marrakech (Fognini has never played Marrakech) I couldn’t rule the Czech out of this one.
Elsewhere in Marrakech I’m struggling to make a good case for any of the other dogs, with Alexander Zverev having a very good record on this surface against players he should beat.
The last time that Zverev lost on clay to a player whose peak ranking wasn’t top-20 was in Hamburg in 2016 when he was defeated by Inigo Cervantes, but Zverev did only arrive yesterday, so he may take a while to get going against Denis Istomin.
Elsewhere, Facundo Bagnis had to fend off 16 break chances to sneak through qualifying against Elias Ymer and his weak break of serve record at main level doesn’t give me much confidence in him against Jaume Munar.
Aljaz Bedene versus Benoit Paire looks priced up about right, with Bedene as slight favourite, but anything’s possible there, while Thomas Fabbiano’s poor record on clay (4-12 win/loss at main level) sees him underdog against Pierre-Hugues Herbert.
The forecast suggests it’ll be cloudy today and that may make it a touch slower than yesterday, but Andreozzi showed that that aggression here can win out against defence in his won over Ramos.
Hopefully that will be the case when our man Federico Delbonis takes on nemesis Pablo Andujar, who surely will be feeling it after two weeks of tennis and he had a right leg injury on Sunday, which he had to have tests on, so this looks a good chance for Delbonis.
Over at the US Men’s Clay Court Championships there are a few possibilities among the underdogs, with 1.68 shot Paulo Lorenzi having lost 13 of his last 15 main level clay court matches.
Lorenzi has never beaten anyone ranked in the top-100 at Houston, but I’m not overly convinced about Daniel Elahi Galan, so I won’t be betting on him today.
Noah Rubin has only managed to break serve 8.4% so far on clay at main level and Guillermo Garcia-Lopez should still have too much on this surface against the young American.
Santiago Giraldo has a solid record in Houston over the years, but he’s not he player he was when those results were recorded, yet he may be able to progress against Bradley Klahn.
Klahn is yet to win a main level match on clay and has been struggling with injuries again this season and this one is another unappealing betting heat.
Jordan Thompson has been playing well of late, but he’s another one with limited experience on clay at main level, but he has won quite a few matches at Challenger level on the red dirt.
Set against that is that his only match in Houston ended in a heavy defeat to Bjorn Fratangelo and young Serbian Pedja Krstin may fancy his chances here after coming through qualies.
Mackenzie McDonald is another one lacking matches on clay (eight career matches in total: 2-6 win/loss) and with a game that doesn’t appear to be best suited to the red dirt, hence he’s underdog against Henri Laaksonen.
Laaksonen struggled his way through qualies and could be fatigued, but it’s hard to fancy McDonald in these conditions.
So, nothing to get excited about in Houston tonight, and I’ll pass today.
Best Bet
0.5 points win Jaziri to beat Haase at 2.80
