It was one nice 3.70 winner and one where (again this week) I chose the wrong bet on Wednesday when Dennis Novak took the opener against Gael Monfils, but Mikhail Kukushkin did too well against Borna Coric.
I said yesterday that Kuku had every chance against Coric, but that Kuku’s price was too short and I preferred the over 2.5 sets, so naturally the Kazakh won it in straights.
It’s been a poor week on the outrights, as so often happens when you get a decent payout the week before, with Marton Fucsovics retiring sick in the deciding set of his clash with Karen Khachanov on Wednesday in Vienna.
Moving on to Thursday and not many players talk about the difficulties they face with certain opponents (for obvious reasons), but one thing I do like about Dominic Thiem is that he’s probably the most honest player we have on the tour in that regard.
He’s 0-4 against Fernando Verdasco on clay (twice), indoor hard and grass and of the Spanish veteran he says: “Verdasco is definitely not my favourite opponent. He’s a lefty who grinds out a lot of points from the baseline, but he’s not the best mover. I need to exploit that.”
Verdasco has beaten Thiem when priced between 2.52 and 4.63 in their last three clashes – the most recent of which was on the clay of Rome earlier this season.
Strangely, Thiem has won 58.4% of his second serve points in this match-up in all, while Verdasco has won 51.7%, but Verdasco has won almost 14% more points on his first serve than Thiem (78% to 64.3%).
That’s led to Verdasco holding serve 88.4% of the time against Thiem, but the Spaniard has saved 77.4% of the break points against him and Thiem has improved his first serve a fair bit lately.
Thiem’s first serve has been very effective on hard courts lately, with 88.4% holds in his last 10 matches on all surfaces and 78% of first serve points won and he doesn’t usually have an issue with lefties.
If we exclude Rafa Nadal, Thiem’s won 15 of his last 18 against lefties and he’ll be far more motivated here than he was the last time he took on Verdasco, as Thiem explained the hoopla behind that rain-delayed Rome match in his usual frank manner.
“There are many things that are not ok. I'm quite pissed about it. I don't really think about the match itself today. I mean, I was tired, exhausted because of all these shitty things.”
So, I’d be surprised if Verdasco beat Thiem again, but it might need a third set for the Austrian if Verdasco is at his aggressive best in this one.
Perhaps surprisingly, Aljaz Bedene and Gilles Simon have played four tie break sets in the five they’ve contested over the years, including an 11-9 breaker when they met in Metz last month.
Bedene has been in superb form from the service line this week, winning an amazing 61 of his 63 first serve points against Federico Delbonis and Guido Pella combined.
I said in my preview of Pella/Bedene that the first serve of Bedene would probably be the deciding factor and it certainly was, with Bedene winning 96% of his first serve points and never facing a break point.
Feli Lopez faded away badly from *4-3 up against Simon to win only three further games in the match on Tuesday and Gillou will have to counter another opponent for whom the first serve is a major weapon in Bedene.
In those two matches against Simon, Bedene has won 86.2% of his first serve points, but only 40% of his second serve points (Simon 50.7% of his second serve points) so if Bedene comes off his high level from the service line Simon will fancy his chances as underdog here.
When they clashed in Metz, Bedene got 73% of his first serves in and won 93% of those points, so it’s be impressive if the Slovenian were to post similar numbers again.
Richard Gasquet surprised me by appearing much fitter and stronger against Juan Ignacio Londero than he had in any of his last few matches prior to that and a poor start from Londero helped the Frenchman further in that one.
Now he’ll need to be at his best physically again when he takes on Roberto Bautista Agut, who’s (presumably) gunning for a spot at the World Tour Finals and should be motivated to achieve that and to reverse the result of his last clash with Gasquet.
That was in Cincy a few months ago, which was the one week that Gasquet looked back to full fitness this season, and he outlasted RBA that day in three sets, which didn’t seem likely on Gasquet’s previous levels of fitness.
If Gasquet can summon up that sort of fitness level again then you’d have to give him a shot as a 3.15 underdog, but it’s proving tough to predict how the Gasman will shape up physically on any given day.
Andrey Rublev looked a bit jaded in a tight win over Alexander Bublik on Tuesday and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the Russian, who won the Moscow title on Sunday was beaten by Hyeon Chung.
Chung has beaten Rublev (as favourite) the last three times they’ve met, but none were since 2017 and Chung’s lack of consistency in recent times puts me off him here.
I’ve mentioned a few times lately that Diego Schwartzman is yet to convince indoors against big servers and having lost to Sam Querrey just a few weeks ago in Beijing you’d have to give Querrey a decent shot of repeating that win indoors.
But on a day that looks rather tricky for betting the two underdogs I prefer to Querrey are Ricardas Berankis and Frances Tiafoe.
I said yesterday that Berankis has a poor record against baseline grinders on indoor hard and he’d lost to one only last week in Moscow when he was stunned by Roberto Carballes Baena.
Pablo Andujar was nowhere near to repeating the success achieved by fellow clay grinder RCB on Wednesday though, as Berankis took Andujar apart in a routine victory in Basel.
Now he faces a rematch of a 2018 clash in Metz with Stefanos Tsitsipas in which, if I remember rightly, we backed Berankis to win the first set and he lost it on a tie break but went on to win in three.
Tsitsipas wasn’t in the best of form at all this summer, but had a good Asian swing, which has seen him be priced up as a 1.22 chance to beat Berankis in this second career clash.
The Greek was a 1.35 shot last time in Metz and there isn’t actually much in this match in terms of their indoor hard main level service hold/break numbers.
Tsitsipas weighs in with 103.6 (84.1% holds/19.5% breaks) while Berankis is on 103.3 (81.6% holds/21.7% breaks) based on their main level careers on this surface.
If we filter that to matches played by both men against the current top-25 the numbers are also very similar, with Tsitsipas on 92.5 and Berankis on exactly the same, in fact, 92.5.
Tsitsipas tends not to break frequently enough and tends to play his best tennis against the elite opponents in big matches, so I think there’s enough in this price on Berankis to take him on one of the handicaps.
The 1.72 about +4.5 games looks good and for a big-priced punt correct score bettors will be interested to discover that when Tsitsipas has been priced up between 1.20 and 1.39 on the tour (not slams or Davis Cup) 12 of his last 13 and 18 of his last 22 opening sets have finished either 6-3 or 6-4.
I also had Frances Tiafoe on my list of possible underdogs for Wednesday and he duly obliged by beating Dan Evans in straight sets and given the very mediocre record of Stan Wawrinka in Basel over the years Tiafoe is worth thinking about today as well.
Wawrinka enjoyed a favourable match-up on indoor hard against Pablo Cuevas on Wednesday, but Tiafoe has more weapons on this surface and if the American is on a good day this might be close.
Finally, David Goffin has a good record against big servers, which reads 7-2 win/loss on indoor hard versus the ones in my database and 27-18 on all surfaces, so this fine returner should prove too much for Reilly Opelka.
So, a few options here and there on Thursday, but I’ll side with Berankis to do something on his favoured indoor conditions against Tsitsipas.
Best Bets
1 point win Berankis +4.5 games to beat Tsitsipas at 1.72
