Debrief
It was a poor start to the clay swing in Marrakech and Houston, with all three of my players losing their opening matches and while I was right to go against Alexander Zverev in Marrakech, it was one that I couldn’t have backed in Benoit Paire that emerged successful from Zverev’s top half of the draw.
Federico Delbonis wasted a host of chances in his defeat to finalist Pablo Andujar, while Reilly Opelka didn’t adapt to the clay as well as I’d hoped, but his opening match was far from easy and the man that beat him, Casper Ruud, is (at the time of writing) looking good to make the final.
Conditions and trends
We’re back at the Monte-Carlo Country Club for the opening M1000 of the clay swing and here they play on what’s usually a fairly medium paced surface with Dunlop Fort balls.
It was clocked at 22.1 on the CPI last year, which is a touch quicker than Rome and Madrid and conditions here are usually pretty similar to the French Open.
Frankly, it’s a week I don’t look forward to at all from a betting perspective, with very few underdog winners and one of the top-five seeds has won the tournament every year since Rafa Nadal was seeded 11th when winning it back in 2005.
That same year of 2005 was the last time that a qualifier made the semis here (Gasquet) and it’s been dominated by Nadal, who’s won an amazing 11 Monte-Carlo titles.
Weather-wise, we’re set for a fairly cool, cloudy week if the forecast is correct, so there won’t be much pace in the courts if that’s the case.
Quarter one
Novak Djokovic has struggled here in recent years, with losses to Jiri Vesely, Dominic Thiem and David Goffin since he last won the title back in 2015 and his form lately has been poor by his standards.
He’ll probably face another clash with the man that knocked him out of Indian Wells, Philipp Kohlschreiber, in his opening match and while it’s a stretch to expect Kohli to do it again Novak’s early draw is tricky.
As well as the more than capable Kohlschreiber there’s Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, Kyle Edmund and Diego Schwartzman in there and Djokovic will almost certainly play one of that trio in his second match – if he beats Kohlschreiber (or Kokkinakis).
Then he’d most likely get Stefanos Tsitsipas, who beat Djokovic on a hard court at Masters 1000 level in Canada last season and is more than capable on a clay court, as he showed in Barcelona.
If we look at the numbers of Tsitsipas’ 19 main level clay matches (11-8 win/loss) we find that he’s won more points on first serve and second serve and held serve more often than Djokovic has in the Serb’s last 50 main level clay matches.
He needs a bit more on return of serve (21.9% breaks), but a 106.4 hold/break total and wins in five of his last nine matches against top-10 opposition makes him for me the best option if we’re opposing Djokovic.
Daniil Medvedev has a lot to prove on clay and is yet to make a M1000 quarter final, so he’s overlooked for me and Tsitsipas looks to have the best of the draw in Q1 in which to potentially take advantage of any Djokovic slip-up – or possibly beat the Serb himself.
He’s beaten Thiem on clay as well, so if the Greek is on a good week he could do some damage in this top half of the draw at 33-1.
Quarter two
Dominic Thiem looks the favourite to win Q2, but we’re not going to get anything like the 80-1 we got on the Austrian at Indian Wells this week, with Thiem a 6-1 shot for the Monte-Carlo title.
He’s reportedly no longer working with Gunter Bresnik, but that didn’t bother him at Indian Wells, with Nicolas Massu making an immediate impact as coach, but Thiem won’t be happy to see David Goffin (8-3 to Goffin head-to-head) in his quarter.
Goffin has been struggling for some time now, but he’s a former semi finalist here in Monte-Carlo and he defeated Thiem here two years ago, although Goffin hasn’t beaten a top-20 player since last August and he’s hard to fancy on form.
Another possible negative for Thiem is that he may face Martin Klizan in round one, who’s beaten Thiem in both of their clay meetings, but both were at altitude in Kitzbuhel and this will be slower.
Karen Khachanov’s clay stats and 3-0 career series lead (only one at main level and none on clay) over Thiem make him an interesting contender, but his form has been so poor this season that I’d probably want a bigger price than 40-1 about the Russian.
Nikoloz Basilashvili is another possibility if he has a good week, but I suspect that Thiem will probably will this quarter.
Quarter three
Both the high seeds in this section of the draw are in awful form and despite Kei Nishikori making the final here a year ago it’s hard to fancy him doing it again – not least as he’s in Rafa Nadal’s half of the draw – but also due to his poor displays lately.
It’s always possible that he could bounce back to form this week, as he came here last year after losing three of his previous four matches and made the title match, but I don’t see it happening this year and it’s also hard to fancy Alexander Zverev, who looks all at sea at the moment with his game.
Fabio Fognini is another whose confidence looks shot right now, while Borna Coric is another one struggling and the Croat has a 1-4 win/loss record in Monte Carlo, too.
On form the pick has to be Felix Auger-Aliassime in this section, but is it asking too much for the 18-year-old to go deep again after a lot of tennis in the last couple of months?
He’s more than capable of knocking Zverev out in the German’s opening match and perhaps beating Zverev could set him going on another run similar to the one in Miami.
FAA has now won five of his six career matches against top-20 opposition and while it’s hard to see him taking down Nadal and making the final I see no reason why he can’t win this quarter.
Fernando Verdasco made the final here back in 2010, but he’s only won four of the 11 matches he’s played here since and having just become a new dad, too, I’m not feeling a deep run here from Nando, but he could well take down Nishikori first up if he’s in the mood.
Quarter four
Pretty much everything, not just in this quarter, but in the tournament as a whole depends on Rafael Nadal and his knees. How fit is he after withdrawing from Indian Wells a month ago with a recurrence of his knee issue?
“It's something that I've had for a long time,” he said after quitting Indian Wells. “It reminds me that I can train and play less than I'd like,” he added.
Presumably after almost a month of rest (he reportedly returned to training at the end of March) he’ll be okay for yet another tilt at the title, but there has to be at least a fraction of doubt as to his fitness right now.
If he’s not fit then the likes of Marco Cecchinato, Marin Cilic, Lucas Pouille, Denis Shapovalov, Stan Wawrinka, Roberto Bautista Agut and Grigor Dimitrov might fancy their chances in this quarter, but it’s hard to see any of them besting a fit Nadal in these playing conditions.
We’d just be gambling on Nadal being very much below par and I prefer the option of backing a player (or players) in the top half of the draw and seeing how things pan out for Nadal in the bottom half.
Conclusion
Noting that this event is almost always won by one of the top-five seeds I’m stretching that a little to this year’s number six seed, Tsitsipas, who looks to have the draw, the stats and the ability to beat top-10 players that could see him go deep here.
Clearly, much depends on Djokovic and Nadal, but with the Serb currently struggling a bit and with a patchy record in Monte-Carlo too, he looks worth taking on with the Greek in the top half.
Best Bet
1 point each-way Tsitsipas to win Monte-Carlo at 34.0
