I said yesterday that if ever there was a day for minimum stakes it was Friday and there was little joy for any of the underdogs, with one withdrawing (Marin Cilic) and the other two losing.
Stan Wawrinka found Rafa Nadal in his best form for a while and had no chance on the day, while our tournament outright Dominic Thiem had to save a couple of match points to avoid a straight sets defeat to Roger Federer.
We start at (not before) 15:00 UK time on Saturday in the semi final round, which has produced 33% underdog winners from 2013 to 2018 inclusive.
Novak Djokovic vs Dominic Thiem
I’m happy to have another wager on Thiem here, with the Austrian having won his last two matches on clay against Djokovic and holding much better stats on this surface against the elite players in recent times.
The layers seem to be siding with the pure stats of the last 12 months on clay of this pair, which shows that Djokovic has compiled a 12-3 win/loss record and a service hold/break total of 116.7.
Looks good on paper, but in those 15 matches the Serb has only faced three players ranked in the top-20 – and lost two of them.
Indeed, if we go further and take his last 10 matches on clay against the players in my database as ‘top-10 quality’ we find that he’s 4-6 win/loss and with a weak hold/break total of just 94.6.
Djokovic fans will perhaps claim that their man wasn’t at his best when some of those matches were played, but nevertheless the Serb has a lot to prove at this moment in time against the best players on clay.
If we take Thiem’s last 10 against the same group of players we find that he’s 7-3 win/loss and with a combined hold/break total of 109.9 – holding serve exactly the same amount of time (85%) – as he does against all ranks of opposition.
And that tricky situation against Federer could be just what Thiem needed – a tough match against an elite opponent – and it always felt to me as if Thiem was the very likely winner of that one if he took the set two breaker.
It was a match-up at altitude that was always likely to bother Thiem a bit, due to the pace at which Fed plays the game, but he’ll find the much slower style of Djokovic more to his liking today.
Thiem himself pointed to the fact that Novak wasn’t at his best when this pair clashed the last two times, but the layers still had the Serb as favourite (1.44 and 1.72) on those occasions.
Djokovic may well rue the missed opportunity of another match in these conditions (one he most likely would have won) against Marin Cilic, as two pretty straightforward affairs against Fritz and Chardy aren’t great preparation for a clash against the in-form Thiem.
The only time Djokovic has faced a top-20 player on clay this year was against Daniil Medvedev and he lost that one and so we’re left guessing a bit as to whether the Serb is up to this sort of test at this current moment.
Since landing a third straight major in Melbourne at the start of the year he’s 2-3 win/loss versus top-50 ranked opposition and we’ll see today if the desire is still there in non-slam events.
It could well be the case that he needs a big match such as this to find his best tennis, but even so I’m still happy to have another go at Thiem as underdog here.
In the second semi final between Stefanos Tsitsipas and Rafael Nadal it’s tough to see a path to success for the Greek if the Spaniard continues to play the way he did against another single-hander in Wawrinka.
Rafa has been up and down though and the small courts (in terms of the room behind the baseline) here don’t suit him as well as the acres of space at the French Open do to work the defence.
The top-spin forehand was killing Wawrinka, as it does against most one-handed righties when Nadal is on form, and it caused Tsitsipas no end of problems when the pair met in Melbourne earlier on this year.
Indeed, Nadal is yet to drop a set in seven against Tsitsipas, who may also be feeling it a little bit physically after a three setter last night (and then the doubles) on top of his Estoril title run.
Nadal has won all three of his opening sets against Tsitsipas 6-2 and the stats are bad for the Greek, who’s held serve just 53% of the time against Nadal, who has held his won deal 96.7% of the time in this match-up.
No bet for me in this one, with Nadal a fair enough price at 1.14, based on their series so far.
Best Bet
1 point win Thiem to beat Djokovic at 2.0
