We’re not getting much luck in tie breaks at the moment and Zhizhen Zhang wasting a 3-0 lead in his opening set breaker against Hubert Hurkacz ultimately cost us the +1.5 sets bet in China on Sunday.
Zhang won just four points fewer than Hurkacz on the day, but still lost in two sets, despite winning 83% of his first serve points and facing only two break points all match to Hurkacz’s four.
We move on to day two in Shanghai and weather looks cloudy and humid on Monday for the 12 matches that are scheduled, so it’ll be a bit of a test of stamina.
Monday’s play in Shanghai appears to offer a few possible options for underdog backers and these include: Frances Tiafoe, Albert Ramos, Vasek Pospisil, Jeremy Chardy, Mikhail Kukushkin, Cristian Garin and possibly Marco Cecchinato.
Of these I’ll take a chance firstly on Albert Ramos to take down the struggling Marin Cilic at odds of around the 2.85 mark in this opening match of the day on Show Court 3.
Ramos has been in good form in recent months after a poor first half of the season and he’s beaten some quality players here in Shanghai, including Roger Federer, Cilic himself, Sam Querrey, Jan-Lennard Struff and Pablo Carreno Busta.
And given the form, or lack of it, that Cilic still finds himself in after a poor season this looks to be a tricky challenge for the Croat, whose ball striking on the forehand side in particular has been awful lately.
Last week he started pretty well against Yuichi Sugita in Tokyo, but that level didn’t last long and in his next match he hit 45 unforced errors in three sets against Hyeon Chung to slump to another odds-on defeat.
He’s now lost seven of his last nine main level matches as betting favourite and 14 of his last 20, which is a woeful return if you’re a committed Cilic backer at odds-on.
Cilic’s form has been so bad this season that he’s yet to make a single semi final (he’s only made two quarter finals) since Cincinnati in 2018.
Ramos has proven he can beat this type of opponent in these Shanghai conditions on several occasions when he’s feeling confident, as he should be right now and I’m happy to take a chance on him here.
Vasek Pospisil has started playing better lately and seems injury-free for a change and the Canadian often shows his best stuff in these quick Shanghai conditions.
Indeed, Pospisil has held serve 90.1% of the time in his 10 main draw matches at this tournament and if he serves well again (he’s qualified over Mannarino and Granollers without being broken) this might be tough even for a returner like Diego Schwartzman.
Schwartzman was blasted out of it by the 32 aces of Sam Querrey in much cooler and slower conditions in Beijing last week, which was disappointing for us, but here in Shanghai he’s only broken serve 9.2% of the time in his three matches.
Last year he was eased aside by Querrey in straight sets here in Shanghai and Querrey had lost five of his previous seven matches coming into that encounter and didn’t play particularly that day either.
It may simply be too fast for Schwartzman here and I’ll take a chance on that theory at odds of 3.35.
Talking of Sam Querrey, his opponent on Monday is Fabio Fognini, whose another one for whom conditions in Shanghai are often too quick, with Fabio breaking serve only 14.4% of the time in his 15 main draw matches here.
The clash between Ze Zhang and Pablo Carreno Busta is interesting purely because it’s probably the match featuring the worst stats at a single tournament for both players that I can recall off the top of my head.
Zhang is 0-9 in the main draw here and with a hold/break total of 75.7, while PCB is 0-3, has never broken serve and has a hold/break total of 72.4.
PCB is probably another one for whom it’s too fast in Shanghai, but Zhang doesn’t look up to the job of defeating him.
My third bet today will be to back Mikhail Kukushkin as slight underdog to beat Miomir Kecmanovic, with the quick conditions likely to favour Kuku, for whom most outdoor hard courts are too slow.
The disparity between his record on outdoor hard this season and his six career matches in the main draw of Shanghai is great, with a 3-8 win/loss and a hold/break total of 90.7 in the former and 3-3 and 101.3 in the latter.
For me this is down to events like Indian Wells, Miami and even the Rogers Cup and Cincy Masters not being quick enough and if we look at his record this year on indoor hard the gap gets even bigger (86.7% holds/204.% breaks and a 107.1 total indoors this season).
In Marseille, where it’s fast, Kuku made the final and narrowly lost out to Stefanos Tsitsipas 7-5, 7-6, and last year in Shanghai he beat Berrettini, Lopez and Ramos to show what he can do here, so slight underdog against Miomir Kecmanovic looks decent.
Kecmanovic lacks the power to overwhelm Kuku and we’ll see if he can beat the Kazakh in these quick conditions, having struggled lately on hard courts, losing to Paulo Lorenzi, Ramos and twice in straight sets to Denis Shapovalov in the last six weeks or so.
Shapovalov is one of several other players that have struggled here in Shanghai so far (0-2), while others on the card today are Pablo Cuevas (0-4) and Jeremy Chardy (4-8).
Chardy may become the latest to take advantage of the Kyle Edmund slump, but both men would prefer it slower and perhaps a better bet is Gilles Simon over Cam Norrie.
Simon gets good value for his shots in these conditions and his hold/break total here in his 27 career matches (17-10 win/loss) is a very decent 108.4, holding his fairly weak serve 80.5% of the time.
It may well be too fast for Norrie here as well, but I rarely get Norrie matches right these days, such is his tendency for big fluctuations in form and confidence, so I’ll probably leave that one.
Cristian Garin is another tempting one against Pablo Cuevas, for him surely it's too fast here, as his 0-4 record suggests, but is Garin fit after rolling his anlle last week? That's the gamble with that one.
Best Bets
1 point win Kukushkin to beat Kecmanovic at 1.93
0.5 points win Ramos to beat Cilic at 2.85
0.5 points win Pospisil to beat Schwartzman at 3.35
