We managed to find a slight odds-against winner with our only bet of the day on Wednesday when Nikoloz Basilashvili defeated Andrey Rublev as a 2.14 chance, while our other wager was void when Guido Pella withdrew from Doha injured.
On the outright front a very decent performance from Daniil Medvedev sees him through to the Brisbane quarter finals, but John Millman was beaten by Grigor Dimitrov and Ramkumar Ramanathan failed to finish off Malek Jaziri from a set up and 3-0 ahead in the second set tie break.
There are 11 matches in total for us on Thursday on what looks a tricky day for value seekers.
Kei Nishikori has a healthy-looking 5-1 career series lead (at all levels) over Grigor Dimitrov to take into their (not before) 09:00 UK time clash in Brisbane, but it’s been a pretty closely contested series, with always 13 points or fewer between them overall in those six meetings.
The one that Dimitrov did win was in the Brisbane final of 2017, but we can see from their four main level outdoor hard court clashes that Dimitrov has found breaking the Nishikori serve a tough ask, achieving it only 10.5% of the time.
Nishikori’s (for me) superior two-handed backhand is a more reliable weapon that he has more options on than Dimitrov’s single-hander, which can go astray at times, so the Bulgarian will need his best tennis to win this one.
He’s looked in decent touch so far this tournament, but not enough for me to back him here at 2.23 (he was priced up as a 2.74 shot in that 2017 Brisbane final).
Jeremy Chardy vs Yasutaka Uchiyama
The Japanese has been playing some good tennis in Brisbane this week in qualies and the main draw and I fancy the chances of their being a tie break in his quarter final clash with the inconsistent Chardy.
Uchiyama has only been broken twice in his four matches so far this week and not at all in the main draw, so he’s in a really good groove on serve and if he keeps that up it’ll be tough for the mediocre return game of Chardy to break too often.
Chardy found Nick Kyrgios in one of his ‘I don’t care’ moods on Wednesday, with the moody Aussie again making himself a target for the press with his “I honestly could not care less,” post-match comments, so it’s hard to judge that win from Chardy.
What we do know is that he’s a weak 13-30 in main level quarter finals in his career and Chardy can’t be trusted to string back-to-back performances (unless they’re bad ones) together too often.
Given that Chardy’s serve should also be tough to break in these conditions (Kyrgios didn’t manage it at all and Jan-Lennard Struff only once) I’m happy to take a chance on the set one breaker at 3.50 here.
Over in Pune tie breaks seem likely in the Ernests Gulbis versus Ivo Karlovic encounter, while if he’s not too fatigued Steve Darcis’ crafty play style may well prove too much for Malek Jaziri, but the Belgian is rarely one to trust in terms of his physical condition.
Kevin Anderson is likely to be too powerful for Jaume Munar in these lively conditions, but Benoit Paire has a good record in India and has looked decent so far this week in Pune and stands a chance against defending champ Gilles Simon.
Paire still has a weak record against fellow Frenchmen though, losing six of his eight on outdoor hard at main level and 15 of 42 on all surfaces, plus he’s lost five of his last six against Simon, so odds of 2.17 aren’t that tempting.
In Doha it’ll be interesting to see if Stan Wawrinka can keep up his good start to the season against a durable opponent like Roberto Bautista Agut, having so far faced two much more attacking players in Karen Khachanov and Nicolas Jarry.
It would be no great shock if RBA were to wear the Swiss down and take it in a third, which could well happen unless Stan continues to play well.
Marton Fucsovics tested Novak Djokovic on Wednesday and it’ll take a repeat of the sort of level that Fucsovics found from Nikoloz Basilashvili for the Georgian to have much of an impact against the stern defences of the Serb in their quarter final.
The three-match career series of Dusan Lajovic and Marco Cecchinato were all played on clay between three and six years ago, so there’s little to go on their in terms of the match-up, but one would expect Lajovic to just have a little too much for the Italian on this surface.
So, it’s a tricky-looking day, and one where I’m happy to take on a risky one for a single point in Brisbane as the day’s only wager.
Best Bet
1 point win over 12.5 games in set one of Chardy/Uchiyama at 3.50
