Friday was another successful day of grass court betting, with the over games comfortably home in the Feli Lopez versus Milos Raonic clash at Queen’s Club, while Gilles Simon chalked up yet another 2-1 win, to land us a 3.95 winner against Nicolas Mahut.
The weather forecast doesn’t look to hold any problems for Saturday’s play in either Halle or London, with no rain in the forecast for day six.
Felix Auger-Aliassime vs Feliciano Lopez
I said yesterday that FAA looks to have taken to grass better than Stefanos Tsitsipas and only possible fatigue put me off backing the young Canadian against the Greek in their quarter final on Friday.
As it turned out it was Tsitsipas that was the one suffering physically on the day and FAA now takes his main level grass court career win/loss mark to 6-1, with only the red hot Matteo Berrettini to have beaten him on grass so far.
Auger-Aliassime has done it by holding serve a whopping 95.6% of the time in which he’s saved a very healthy 84% of the break points against him and his excellent movement is also a big plus on this surface.
It’ll be interesting to see how he copes with the unusual play style of lefty Lopez on Saturday though, with FAA yet to face a left-hander on grass and he’s 3-5 against lefties so far in his main level career.
Lopez came out on top, just about, against Milos Raonic on Friday in the expected tight affair that went all the way to a final set breaker and the Spaniard in his three main level matches on grass in 2019 has held serve 93.8% of the time and saved 72.7% of the break points against him.
On those stats and also the one that says both men create only one break point chance every three games on grass this season and their very high tie break ratios of 0.38 and 0.33 per set on this surface in 2019 I’m expecting a breaker or two.
It’s not the best of prices, but on what looks a tough day for value seekers I’ll take the over 12.5 games in set one at 2.30, with five of FAA's seven opening sets this grass swing having gone to 12 games or more.
In the second semi final at Queen’s Club, Daniil Medvedev looks a tad skinny at 1.24 against Gilles Simon, but I’ve mentioned in past previews the awful record lately of Simon when he’s played back-to-back three setters in his preceding matches.
Gillou doesn’t really have the legs any more and he’ll do well to stay close to what looks an increasingly in-form Medvedev after two tough matches and in particular the three hours and 20 minutes against his pal Mahut on Friday.
In comparison, Medvedev zipped past Diego Schwartzman in an hour and 16 minutes and I’m loath to back Simon – even at this price – in these circumstances.
If he were fresher then his counter punching style could work against Medvedev, but I don’t trust the Frenchman’s fitness these days.
In Halle it was the expected tough, but ultimately successful win for Roger Federer on Friday against Roberto Bautista Agut, who, all too predictably, cracked serving to stay in the match in the third.
And while it wasn’t vintage Federer again it’s tough to see Pierre-Hugues Herbert beating the Swiss maestro on Saturday in a first career meeting.
Herbert got a retirement out of Borna Coric, who was struggling with a back injury on Friday, and he sounded rather surprised that he’d managed to get that far.
“I’m in the semi-finals – this is unbelievable,” he said and given that Federer is 11-1 against the net rushers in my database (we all remember the one he lost at Wimbledon, I presume, to a certain Mr Stakhovsky) and has only dropped sets in two of those 12 I’m not expecting a huge amount from Herbert on Saturday.
Federer wins an awful lot of one-break sets and in those 12 matches against net rushers he’s won seven of the 12 opening sets either 6-3 or 6-4 which is where I’d be looking if I were betting on this one.
Finally, the in-form Matteo Berrettini has now compiled an 8-1 win/loss mark on grass this season, holding serve 98.8% of the time and breaking 21.4% of the time, which is right up there at the very top of the stats chart.
With such a huge advantage on serve over someone like David Goffin, whose own serve is rather hit and miss, the pressure on the Belgian to hold will be immense and I won’t be backing Goffin here.
He played well against Alexander Zverev, but as I’ve said a few times lately, Goffin hasn’t been able to keep his best level for more than a match or two at a time and with Berrettini pulling out of Eastbourne next week fatigue shouldn’t be too much of a worry for the Italian.
Goffin is 1-4 win/loss against the big servers in my database on grass and the one win came in slower conditions in Rosmalen against Gilles Muller and I’d expect Berrettini to be too powerful if he stays at his current level.
Best Bet
1 point win over 12.5 games in set one of Auger-Aliassime/Lopez at 2.30
