We were unlucky with Hubert Hurkacz on Sunday, with the Pole winning just a single point fewer than Borna Coric in a tight affair that was halted by the rain at an unfortunate moment early in the third set.
Play should have been suspended at the very start of set three, but was allowed to continue in the rain for the first game of the set in which Hurkacz was broken and having got back into the match at 5-5 in the third the Pole’s nerve failed him when it mattered.
Overall, it was a typical Monte-Carlo day, with all four betting favourites winning and Hurkacz came the closet to the upset win.
The forecast suggests we can expect a much sunnier day on Monday and with less wind, so conditions look decent for tennis on day two when 15 round one matches are scheduled to play.
I have three underdogs in mind to side with on Monday, but given that 81% of the favourites have won in round one in the last three years in Monte-Carlo it could be worth going with the handicaps as an option.
Nikoloz Basilashvili vs Marton Fucsovics
I think the layers have gone with the stats when pricing this one and they show that in his 23-match main level clay court career (11-12 win/loss) Fucsovics has some respectable numbers.
The Hungarian comes out with a service hold/break total of 103 in those 23 matches, while Basilashvili is only on 93.8 in his 41 main level matches on clay (20-21 win/loss).
However, most of Fucsovics’ good work on this surface was done in much faster conditions at slight altitude in Geneva last season when he had a great week in the sun at 375m of altitude.
The likes of Mischa Zverev, Steve Johnson and Peter Gojowczyk have also gone well in Geneva in recent times and that shows how much quicker somewhere like Geneva is compared to Monte-Carlo.
In these slower conditions I fancy Basil to be the more adept clay court operator and I’m happy to take the Georgian as slight underdog in this one.
That match is a 10:00 UK time start on Court 2 and at the same time over on Court Rainier III there’s an intriguing clash between Daniil Medvedev and Joao Sousa.
Medvedev has an awful record on clay of two wins from his 13 main level matches and a hold/break total of just 88.2 in those matches, so he’s got a lot to prove right now on this surface.
The sunnier conditions will help the Russian, but having lost to Sousa on the clay of Estoril in their only red dirt encounter as well, we’re taking a lot on trust that Medvedev has improved his clay court game if we’re backing him as a 1.57 favourite.
Sousa hovers just a shade below the 100 mark in his main level clay hold/break numbers (101.3 for his Monte-Carlo career) and perhaps Sousa on the handicap is an option in this one.
Denis Shapovalov has improved his game on clay in a short space of time from being pretty awful to recording a 98.1 hold/break total in his dozen main level matches on the red dirt now (7-5 win/loss).
I’m not sure that it should translate into him being a 1.66 chance against Jan-Lennard Struff though in a repeat of their very tight clash in much quicker conditions indoors in Tokyo last autumn.
There’s less than one percent in it if we compare Shapo’s short clay career hold/break stats to the last 50 on this surface at main level of Struff and even though Shapo won that Tokyo clash he had to come back from match point down to avoid a straight sets loss – and did it with the help of a net cord.
Similarly to my thoughts on Fucsovics it was in quicker conditions that Shapovalov found his clay game last year (in Madrid at altitude) and we’ll see if he can justify favouritism in a match played in slower conditions.
Elsewhere, Fabio Fognini is another favourite that may well struggle, with the out of form Italian facing what appears to be a tricky opening round test against qualifier Andrey Rublev.
On current form it’s hard to see any value in Fognini as favourite, while Kyle Edmund could also face a stern challenge from Diego Schwartzman.
Jeremy Chardy is 4-9 win/loss in Monte-Carlo in his career and is coming off a rough loss in Houston last week, but what could prove useful about Mikhail Kukushkin’s clay stats in his last 50 main level matches on this surface is that he’s lost 18 of his last 22 tie breaks.
Perhaps that might be enough for even Chardy to win a tie break this week. Who knows?
There aren’t usually many tie breaks in Monte-Carlo (only 26% of matches in the last six years have featured one) but others with interesting tie break records on clay in either their last 50 main level matches or their entire career include Joao Sousa (11-5 win/loss), Malek Jaziri (3-9), Nikoloz Basilashvili (13-3), Adrian Mannarino (3-11), Pierre-Hugues Herbert (4-8), and Struff (5-11).
So, a few tempting options today, but I’ll continue to be circumspect with my bets and just take Basilashvili and Struff today.
Best Bets
0.5 points win Basilashvili to beat Fucsovics at 1.97
0.5 points win Struff to beat Shapovalov at 2.23
