Karen Khachanov kept it as close as I had hoped against Rafa Nadal on Friday at the BNP Paribas Open to land our set one overs bet, however the Russian will probably feel as though he should have done better.
Nadal once again had problems with his troublesome knees and this time the right knee looked in a pretty bad way, with the trainer called out several times and the knee bandaged up.
Khachanov lacked the belief to really go for the win though and Nadal escaped in two tie breaks and is now in a similar situation to the one at the US Open, where he edged past Khachanov but was unable to complete the tournament.
He may well not show for his semi final against Roger Federer on Saturday and even if he does Nadal’s injury issue makes it virtually impossible to bet on the match.
Our focus though is on the other semi final between Dominic Thiem and Milos Raonic, which starts at 11:00 local time (18:00 UK).
Dominic Thiem vs Milos Raonic
The perceived wisdom suggests that Thiem against a huge server like Raonic on a hard court is unlikely to come out on top, but I’m not sure that that will necessarily be the case on Saturday.
Our 80-1 outright shot loves these conditions, with the lack of pace and high bounce in the surface ensuring that conditions play rather like his beloved clay.
Thiem’s twice been a finalist on fairly quick clay at altitude in Madrid, where he took down big serving Kevin Anderson in the semi finals, and he also defeated Anderson as underdog at the US Open (and Sam Querrey indoors at the end of last season).
Having also beaten Ivo Karlovic here at Indian Wells this week Thiem’s results against the big servers are improving and while I wouldn’t be overly confident if this match was being played on a quicker court, here he stands a decent chance.
Looking at Thiem’s last 10 matches on all surfaces against the big servers in my database he’s 7-3 win/loss and he’s held serve 93.8% of the time, breaking serve 16.5% of the time, which are excellent numbers, and only three of those matches were played on clay.
As I’ve said a few times this week Raonic hasn’t exactly impressed with his level off the ground and if Thiem is able to tackle the Raonic serve and get a decent amount back in play I feel our man can progress to the final.
Just looking at the prices of today’s match shows you that Raonic isn’t the player he was a few years ago: he was a 1.40 chance both times that he beat Thiem in quicker conditions in 2016, while he’s a 1.60 shot today.
If we look at Raonic’s stats in his last 50 matches on outdoor hard and his last 12 months on the same surface (main level) we find that his hold/break total is 106, which is slightly worse than the 107 of Thiem.
The Canadian has faced 14 break points this week already (Thiem only 10 in one match fewer because of Monfils’ withdrawal) and saved 86% of them, so his serve has ben getting him out of a lot of tricky spots.
Raonic was certainly outplayed by both Jan-Lennard Struff and Marcos Giron for spells, but the former yet again crumbled mentally and the latter blinked with the win only a couple of games away.
The warmer conditions expected at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden today will most likely make things tougher for Thiem, so he’ll need to really be on top form on return of serve.
In these conditions it’s a winnable match for Thiem and I can’t see any value in Raonic at 1.60.
A better bet would be the set one overs, with Raonic having played a tie break in each of his last seven matches when he’s been priced up between 1.50 and 1.70.
For me though I’ll stick with Thiem, but there is the option of cashing out your outright on the Austrian for a decent profit if you want to take that approach.
