We’re back on the clay in week 15 and regular readers will need no reminding that this isn’t exactly my strongest part of the year, historically, so it will be by and large low stakes on daily bets for the coming weeks.
That doesn’t mean that there isn’t value to be had in this red dirt spell though and indeed this week has been a very good one for underdog backers, with 40% of them going in on average in both Houston and at the Grand Prix Hassan II over the last six years.
Houston is the equal sixth best tournament of the year for underdog winners and in the three years that Marrakech has been the venue for the Grand Prix Hassan II we’ve seen 41% of the underdogs go in.
So, for me, this is a far more viable week for backing dogs than next week in Monte-Carlo, which is one of the worst events of the year in terms of frequency of underdog winners (only Wimbledon, French Open, Australian Open and the Tour Finals are worse).
There are five main draw matches in round one of the 2019 Grand Prix Hassan II on Monday and most of the underdogs looks hopeful picks at best.
Jozef Kovalik and Cedrik-Marcel Stebe are both coming back from injury, with the former having had wrist surgery recently and the latter about to play his first match since the 2018 Australian Open also following wrist surgery.
Ugo Humbert has never played a main level match on clay and has the sort of game that on the face of it doesn’t look that well suited to the dirt, so he’s hard to fancy against Kyle Edmund, last year’s Marrakech runner-up.
Taro Daniel vs Mischa Zverev
Zverev is a possibility though, if he finds any sort of spark, which hasn't seemed likely given his malaise of the past nine months or so, but he has played well on quicker clay before, notably in Geneva – and he's come out of these slumps on clay in the past.
The German made the final in Geneva in 2017, beating the likes of Kei Nishikori, Robin Haase, John Isner and Steve Johnson and if he’s fit, which he rarely seems to be these days, I wonder if this price on him today is simply too big against Taro Daniel.
Zverev beat a similar type of opponent to Daniel in Paulo Lorenzi here in Marrakech last year as underdog, having come to Marrakech on a similarly poor run (lost 9 of his previous 11) to the one he’s on now.
He also beat Lucas Pouille on slow clay last year in Monte-Carlo and he played well at the French Open, making the last-32, so he can play on the dirt and it’s meant to be sunny on Monday, so it should be quickish conditions.
There’s actually only 3% between Daniel and Zverev in terms of their hold/break totals on clay at main level in their last 50 matches and Daniel is in poor form, too, having lost six of his last seven matches.
He had a bad Golden Swing on the clay, losing all bar one of his matches (one win was against 445-ranked Seyboth-Wild in a decider) and he won one single game against Roberto Carballes Baena in Buenos Aires.
He’s lost 12 of his last 14 matches against top-100 opposition and he’s 0-3 in the main draw of the Grand Prix Hassan II (two losses here and one in Casablanca), so 1.35 looks rather short to me.
This is the second shortest price that Daniel has ever been at main tour or major level and I’m happy to take a chance for small stakes on Zverev sparking into life as he did last year here.
The other match hopefully won’t see an upset, as we have Albert Ramos outright, but Guido Andreozzi has been playing well of late and this is unlikely to be an easy starter for Ramos.
Andreozzi is 3-9 win/loss at main level on clay, but his recent form on hard has been decent and hopefully Ramos will be too strong on the clay for the Argentine.
Over in Houston at the US Men’s Clay Court Championship the two with the best possibilities for me on Monday are Marcel Granollers and Christian Garin.
Granollers has a fine record in Houston (113.8 hold/break total here), but he hasn’t played it since 2009 (the year after he won the title) and his form these days is patchy.
On his day though he’s more than capable of beating Taylor Fritz, who has lost six of his last eight matches in which he was priced up as favourite, so Fritz is anything but a favourite you can rely on.
Garin has never played on this unique Houston surface before, but he has played a few Challengers in the USA in similar conditions and he’s been in good form this season so far.
He made the final of Sao Paulo in quickish conditions at altitude not long ago and Pablo Cuevas’ level is nowhere near as solid as it was when he was at his peak a couple of years ago.
It’s a winnable one for Garin, but on what looks a tricky day on Monday I’ll chance Zverev at the prices.
Best Bet
0.5 points win Zverev to beat Daniel at 3.05
