It doesn’t appear that our outright luck has changed yet as we head to the mid-way point of week six on the ATP Tour, with an injured Tommy Paul going down in New York, followed by a collapse for the ages from Hubert Hurkacz in Rotterdam from a set and 2-0 up to winning only two further games in the match against Stefanos Tsitsipas.
At least Casper Ruud started the week in good style and we’ll see how the Norwegian gets on next in a very winnable match against Roberto Carballes Baena.
In Rotterdam at the ABN AMRO World Tennis Tournament there are eight matches on the card on Wednesday and two stand out as possible betting opportunities.
Daniil Medvedev turned 24 on Tuesday and I wonder if this year will be as good as 2019 ended up being for the Russian, who has a tricky-looking opening match in Rotterdam against Vasek Pospisil.
On paper this looks tricky for Medvedev, who only narrowly edged out Pospisil in two tight sets when they clashed in fast conditions in Shanghai four months ago.
Pospisil led the opening set of that one 5-2 and had five set points on a day where the Canadian had the doctor out for breathing problems and Medvedev was flattered by a 2-0 score line, having won just 30% of his second serve points on the day.
Medvedev went on to win Shanghai after beating Pospisil, but with the Canadian now getting back towards his pre-injuries form and having had a very good week last week this might be a test for Medvedev, who hasn’t played since Melbourne.
The 3.70 about Pospisil winning set one looks a fair wager here.
Assuming that Gael Monfils is fit after winning Montpellier on Sunday he should be too strong for Joao Sousa, who’s just coming back from injury, but Sousa did beat Lamonf as a 4.76 chance indoors in Metz back in 2014.
Sousa’s not in that sort of form at the moment though after a foot injury and with Monfils defending the title here this week it’s be a surprise if Sousa were able to do a great deal in this one.
Gael’s fellow countryman Gilles Simon has a handy record (3-0) over Mikhail Kukushkin and while they were all some time ago and involved a few breakers, Simon has held serve 90% of the time against Kuku so far.
That said, Kukushkin has got a very handy record lately on indoor hard, while Simon was poor last week against a Richard Gasquet that hadn’t played in months and Simon had injury problems that day.
“When I started the match it [the back] was not that bad and then it got worse over time,” Simon said after the Gasquet defeat. “It's always the back. When it was getting better and better there was a relapse, and I didn't manage to reverse the situation.”
Looking at the results and stats of Kuku and Simon this past 12 months on indoor hard they’re comfortably in Kuku’s favour: 9-5 win/loss and a hold/break total of 105.3 (85.4% holds/19.9% breaks) for the Kazakh, compared to 6-7 and 100.7 for Simon (79.6% holds/21.1% breaks).
But the prices reflect that, really, and I was hoping that Kuku would be priced up as underdog here for some value.
At first glance, Jannik Sinner looks much too short at 1.30 to beat Radu Albot, but the latter has barely played this season due to a shoulder injury that saw him pull out of Montpellier last week and the Australian Open, so who knows how fit he is?
Robin Haase has mainly been playing Challengers lately and his record in Rotterdam is pretty weak: 6-11 win/loss and he breaks serve only 16% of the time here, so on form and Rotterdam history he looks unlikely to upset David Goffin.
I wouldn’t be surprised if he kept the first set close though or maybe even won it, as he does tend to start strongly in Rotterdam before losing belief and/or failing at the key moment of the set.
He took the opener against Roger Federer here in 2018 (before losing the next two 6-1, 6-1) and he took the first set against Goffin here in 2017 and Haase has won set one in five of his last six matches here.
The two opening sets before that both went to tie breaks (won one/lost one) and Haase’s lack of form lately may give us an opportunity to take a punt on him here, with Goffin possibly still thinking about his blow-up against Pospisil a few days ago in Montpellier.
Best Bets
0.5 points win Pospisil to win set one at 3.70
0.5 points win Haase to win set one at 3.85
