We managed to get away with a slight profit on a packed day of grass court tennis at Queen’s Club and in Halle on Thursday when Roger Federer rather stole a 2-1 win over Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in a match he could easily have lost.
We were due one though, after Lucas Pouille and Jeremy Chardy both lost tight matches – Chardy in a final set tie break after he failed to serve out the match against Stefanos Tsitsipas from 6-4, *5-4 up.
Richard Gasquet was woeful against Roberto Bautista Agut, while Steve Johnson found Alexander Zverev in much better physical condition than had been speculated on.
It’s been an underdog’s graveyard in Halle the last few days, with the last 18 favourites in a row winning there, but the rain in London had prevented me from really assessing the matches at Queen’s Club.
There’s no rain expected at either venue on Friday, so we’ll get a full day’s play in by the looks of it.
Feliciano Lopez vs Milos Raonic
This week is probably the last hurrah for Lopez in singles at this level on grass and if he serves well he’s got every chance of testing Raonic, who hasn’t been able to put together a solid sequence of tournaments for a long time now.
Lopez has had the better of this match-up, winning three of their last four matches and holding serve 90% of the time against the Canadian, while also winning 55% of his second serve points against Raonic in their seven match series.
They were slated to meet here last year, but once again injury struck Raonic, who withdrew, so they’ve never met on Lopez’s favourite surface of grass.
The only time that Raonic did beat Lopez in his last four tries was in a final set at the 2015 Australian Open and I expect Lopez tp give it everything he’s got today at a tournament he loves and has held serve 92.3% of the time at in his career.
Granted, he’s not the player he was now at the age of 37, but that lefty serve is hard to break on this Queen’s grass and his backhand slice keeps nice and low against a very tall opponent, who’s struggled with back problems lately.
These days you never know what sort of shape Raonic will be in and he was broken twice in one set by Aljaz Bedene on Thursday, so after pulling out of Stuttgart’s semis last week with a back issue he may not be fully fit again here.
Raonic has held onto his own deal 93% of the time against Lopez, so surely this one will go long and the 2.40 about over 27.5 games looks the bet to me.
Elsewhere at Queen’s it seems to me that Stefanos Tsitsipas has some way to go on grass before he’ll be a top level threat on this surface and he’s also struggled against today’s opponent Felix Auger-Aliassime so far.
Had FAA not played two matches on top of a long run in Stuttgart last week I’d have been siding with the young Canadian here as underdog, as he seems to have taken to grass better and quicker than Tsitsipas for now.
Daniil Medvedev should be too powerful for Diego Schwartzman in these conditions and the Russian looks to be favourite for this tournament now given the way that the draw has opened up in the bottom half.
Gilles Simon has a strong record against Nicolas Mahut, who has played a lot of tennis this week, coming through qualies and he’s played 11 sets so far, including two final set tie breaks.
It’s mainly been a struggle for Simon though against his pal and as ever with Simon in these sorts of matches against his old mates (and generally) the 2-1 win is always a good option.
Indeed, Simon has only won two of his last 20 main level matches against fellow Frenchman in straight sets (both against Lucas Pouille) and he’s been struggling for form and fitness lately, so I’m happy to chance the 3.95 about 2-1 to Gillou here.
Over in Halle, where the underdogs are having a shocker at the moment, Karen Khachanov may just have the legs on Matteo Berrettini and he could well be better placed to beat the Italian here than he was in Stuttgart in his first grass match of the season.
So, he’s a possible underdog winner, while David Goffin – if he serves well – couldn’t be discounted against Alexander Zverev, who still has knee problems, which oddly may be forcing him into being more aggressive, which is what he has needed to do for a while.
Roger Federer was rather lucky against Jo-Wilfried Tsonga on Thursday and on that form he may struggle to justify odds of 1.17 against a capable opponent like Roberto Bautista Agut.
Fed’s dominance over RBA was halted slightly by RBA when he had chances to beat Federer in fast conditions in Shanghai last time they met, but as many players do against the elite he couldn’t get it done when it mattered.
I mentioned RBA’s weak record against top-20 opposition on grass the other day and this will probably be another competitive but ultimately losing day against one of the elite for the Spaniard.
Finally, Borna Coric once again got away with one on grass against Joao Sousa in his last match and we collected on the over games in that one, but unless Pierre-Hugues Herbert can get to the net more often than he has generally done on grass he’ll surely struggle.
Herbert came to net only 21 times in three sets against Stakhovsky in the last round and it’s hard to see him beating Coric from the back of the court on any surface unless Coric’s leaky forehand goes AWOL again.
Best Bets
1 point win over 27.5 games in Lopez/Raonic at 2.40
0.5 points win Simon to beat Mahut 2-1 at 3.95
