We got off to a winning start in London on Sunday with a pretty comfortable 2.38 winner in the form of the under 19.5 games in Novak Djokovic’s clash with Matteo Berrettini.
It was routine for Djokovic in a 6-2, 6-1 success over the Italian, who as expected, was unable to do a great deal against the in-form Serb.
Monday’s play at the O2 features two round robin matches from Group Andre Agassi, with the first of these starting at (not before) 14:00 UK time.
And it’s been a very good match-up so far for Daniil Medvedev, who has won all five of his career clashes with Stefanos Tsitsipas on indoor and outdoor hard and clay courts.
Usually the more reliable game of Medvedev, whose level usually stays pretty much the same throughout his matches, trumps the more volatile game of the Greek, who can play at a very high level, but does suffer dips.
The stats of this career series show that Tsitsipas has had a problem breaking the serve of Medvedev, with the Russian holding serve 84.5% of the time in their five meetings.
So, Tsitsipas has broken only 15.5% of the time, where Medvedev has broken Tsitsipas 25.6% of the time and won 10% more of his second serve points (57.2% compared to 47.2%).
Medvedev has created more break chances (0.56 per game compared to 0.39 per game) and won 7.4% more points on his first serve than Tsitsipas, too (80.6% compared to 73.2%).
Last time they met, which was a month ago in quick conditions in Shanghai, it was a tight-looking scoreline (7-6, 7-5) but Medvedev still won 66% of his second serve points compared to the 44% of Tsitsipas.
Tsitsipas actually created more break chances that day (five) than Medvedev (three) but was only able to take one of them and that’s one factor that stops Tsitsipas against the very best players – he still doesn’t break them often enough.
Against the players I have in my database as ‘top-10 quality’ in the past 12 months Medvedev is 8-5 win/loss and has broken them 22.4% of the time, while Tsitsipas is 4-8 win/loss and breaks 16.9% of the time.
That 16.9% or so isn’t enough unless you’re holding yourself 90% of the time or more, which Tsitsipas doesn’t, so on paper Medvedev is a fair favourite here, but 1.40 isn’t the best of prices.
Tsitsipas started favourite in three of his last four clashes with Medvedev and at some point soon he’ll beat the Russian and maybe that day will be on Monday.
The razzmatazz of this big occasion will surely appeal to the Greek and perhaps it won’t suit Medvedev as well; we don’t know, as this will be the first time in this event for both men.
The bet I like here though is no tie break at around evens, with 14 of the 15 sets played between this pair being settled without the need for a tie break and the only one that featured a breaker was in fast conditions in Shanghai.
Also, only 35% of the matches at the O2 over the last seven years have featured a tie break, so if we’re going on that stat ‘tie break played’ should be a 2.86 chance and ‘no tie break’ a 1.54 shot.
Throw in the lack of breakers in this career series and some likely debut jitters then 1.98 about no tie breaks seems pretty reasonable.
The evening match between Rafael Nadal and Alexander Zverev looks one to avoid from a betting point of view, with Nadal’s condition unknown.
Nadal only started serving “very slowly” on Thursday after his injury in Paris, but according to those that watched him on Friday and Saturday in practice Nadal’s serve was getting a lot better by Saturday afternoon’s session.
The fitness issue and also Nadal’s very ordinary record at this event of 16-13 win/loss and a hold/break total of exactly 100 makes him hard to fancy as a 1.44 chance, so maybe there’s some mileage in chancing Zverev here.
The German has a better record than Nadal here (admittedly from only eight matches), with a 5-3 win/loss mark (and the title last season) and a hold/break total of 101.
It could certainly be questioned as to whether Zverev has the same belief deep down this year after a pretty poor season, but maybe coming back to the O2 will spark him into life.
Nadal has won all five of their career clashes, but the last three were all on clay and if memory serves, Zverev was very unlucky with an unfortunately timed rain delay in Rome and he led Rafa 2-1 at the Australian Open two years ago before losing in five.
This one has too many variables for my liking, with Nadal’s injury and Zverev’s poor form for much of this year and I’ll pass.
Best Bet
0.5 points win under 0.5 tie breaks in Medvedev/Tsitsipas at 1.98
