We didn’t get any joy from a poor Marco Cecchinato on Monday, with the Italian’s return to Umag as defending champion ending in a weak loss to Aljaz Bedene.
That was poor, considering that he beat Pablo Cuevas in Bundesliga on Friday, which should have been a nice boost coming back to a tournament he’s got a good record in, but perhaps the head-to-head is in his, well, head.
It’s one of those incredibly busy ATP Tour Tuesdays next that we’ll be seeing for the next three weeks and this time there are 26 matches across this week’s three tournament to look at.
That is obviously far too many, so I’ll start with the Swedish Open in Bastad and update the page with Umag and Newport information as soon as possible.
We’ve got 10 matches in Bastad, where it’s expected to be a typically windy day, with wind speeds of up to 32kph forecast at this coastal venue.
That would make me nervous about backing players with a high ball toss that are in action today, such as Nicolas Jarry and Federico Delbonis to name a couple.
Jarry faces our huge-priced outright punt Henri Laaksonen, who was cut in to 33-1 from 150s before a ball was hit, so hopefully he can use his substantial experience of conditions here to take out Jarry, who’s never played Bastad before.
The Chilean isn’t the best mover on tour by any means and I always feel that in strong winds you need to be nimble and that’s not Jarry, so our man has his chances as underdog here in a first career clash.
Jozef Kovalik won a few matches last week on the clay at the Braunschweig Challenger and followed that up by beating Philipp Kohlschreiber in Bundesliga, so maybe he’s coming back to form after injury problems.
He could catch Joao Sousa a bit cold, with Sousa not having played singles on clay yet since Wimbledon, although Sousa did play doubles on Monday with Pablo Carreno Busta.
Talking of PCB he’s struggled his way through qualies in Bastad and will face Jeremy Chardy on Tuesday, with Chardy having won three of their four career clashes and coming in as underdog here.
Chardy crushed an unfit PCB in the end in Estoril a few months back, but then was awful on a very windy day next up in a 6-1, 6-2 loss to Alejandro Davidovich Fokina and his high ball toss is a concern in this likely wind.
That said, ever the enigma, Chardy played very well against both Albert Ramos and Diego Schwartzman on windy days in Madrid a week later, and so it’s anyone’s guess with Chardy.
Albert Ramos has a very good record in Bastad, but he’s not the confident player he’s been in the past and again he gave up a good lead to lose a poor one to Guillermo Garcia Lopez in the semis of the Perugia Challenger a few days ago.
He lost to Peter Torebko (ranked 534) and Sumit Nagal (272) in the last six weeks on clay and after that painful loss in Perugia to GGL he looks a shaky choice at 1.38 against qualifier Constant Lestienne.
But perhaps the man that won that Perugia Challenger title against GGL might be worth opposing a bit on Tuesday after a quick turnaround.
Federico Delbonis, as I mentioned earlier, has a very high ball toss and his record here in Bastad is, perhaps unsurprisingly, rather weak, with three wins and four losses.
Coming from what Delbonis called the win in the Perugia final “a match really full of emotions,” [he has Italian heritage] and now less than two days later he’s on court in Sweden at an event he’s struggled at in the past.
Indeed, Delbonis has lost his opening set in Bastad in six of his seven matches here and facing a qualifier who’s qualified well in Bernabe Zapata Miralles he might be worth opposing either on the handicap or in that opening set.
The wind in the afternoon is forecast to be over 30kph and with the young Spaniard used to it a bit from qualies and Delbonis having that high ball toss I like the 3.65 about Zapata Miralles taking set one.
Elsewhere, I’d expect favourites Hugo Dellien and Casper Ruud to win and hopefully our other Bastad outright Juan Ignacio Londero, who takes on fellow Argentine Facundo Arguello.
Hall of Fame Open
At the prices I’m tempted to take Matt Ebden to defeat Brayden Schnur, based on the respective grass court capabilities of the pair, but I guess we have to be a bit cautious about Ebden.
The injury and sickness prone Aussie retired last week citing vertigo, while Schnur made a final on hard courts, so I’ll pass on that one, but on his best grass form Ebden should have a clear edge over the Canadian, who’s shown very little on grass so far.
Jason Jung played well here last year, beating Mahut and Stakhovsky, which is impressive on a slick grass court, but he’s another that has injury doubts after retiring from the doubles last week with an elbow injury.
Perhaps that was just caution, but it does put me off him a bit against Viktor Troicki, who qualified in decent style.
If he is fit Jung is more than capable of the upset there against this 2019 version of Troicki and I’m hopeful that Alex Bolt and Tim Smyczek can make their respective ways through on Tuesday as well.
It looks like the layers have lost all respect for Mischa Zverev, who’s rated an almost 2-1 chance to beat Smyczek on grass now, while Bolt is a 50/50 shout to beat the erratic Alexander Bublik according to the layers.
Denis Kudla isn’t the most consistent of players and he’s struggled on grass since making the Stuttgart quarter finals, but Bradley Klahn doesn’t inspire a great deal of confidence on what I’ve seen of him this grass swing.
The one I fancy taking a small chance on today is Christopher Eubanks, who has the weapons on his day to cause problems for defending champion Steve Johnson.
Johnson has a patchy Newport record, with a title last year set against straight sets losses to Donald Young and Tatsuma Ito here, and Eubanks will be highly motivated here as a wild card – he certainly sounds as if he is.
What interests me is that Eubanks has started quickly in a lot of his main level matches, winning seven of his 12 opening sets (four of his last five), while only going on to win three of them.
I like either the set one tie break at 3.0 or set one to Eubanks in this one at 3.15.
Best Bets
0.5 points win Zapata Miralles to win set one at 3.65
0.5 points win Eubanks to win set one at 3.15
