Marton Fucsovics provided us with another nice winner on Saturday in Sofia in what’s been a very good week for the daily bets, when the Hungarian, as I’d hoped he might, outlasted Matteo Berrettini.
We’ve three finals to look at on Sunday, starting at around 13:30 UK time in Montpellier.
Jo-Wilfried Tsonga vs Pierre-Hugues Herbert
Tsonga is looking for his eighth indoor hard court title on French soil and a first in Montpellier when he faces compatriot Herbert for the Open Sud de France crown.
Tsonga is 7-3 win/loss at the moment in finals at home on indoor hard, but he has lost a couple as favourite: to Ernests Gulbis in Marseille 2014 and to Gilles Simon in Metz the year before.
Herbert is looking for his first main level title after two previous losses in championship matches on the ATP World Tour (to Yoshihito Nishioka last season in Chengdu and to Kevin Anderson back in 2014 in Winston-Salem).
This will be the third career clash between the pair, with Tsonga so far yet to drop a set against Herbert in victories on indoor hard here in Montpellier in 2017 (6-1, 6-2 as a 1.17 chance) and at the 2016 Australian Open (6-4, 7-6, 7-6 as a 1.11 shot).
So far in this match-up Herbert has been nowhere near on Tsonga’s serve, with the big man holding 92.2% of the time and winning 90.4% of his first serve points, while sending down 1.18 aces per game.
Herbert has only held serve 72.5% of the time against Tsonga, but the latter has posted a very high percentage of break points won (77.8%) in those two matches and I’d expect this to be a bit closer if Herbert isn’t overawed by playing Tsonga in a final in France, which he may well be.
In Tsonga’s last 50 main level matches on indoor hard he’s taken 40.1% of his break chances (created 0.45 break chances per game), but it’s hard to really use recent stats where Tsonga is concerned, as those he posted last season were pretty mediocre, as he was coming back from injury.
This week in Montpellier Tsonga has held serve 94.3% of the time and while Herbert has also held 93% of the time Herbert has saved a whopping 83.3% of the break points he faced: notably 10 of 11 in the first couple of sets against Ilya Ivashka.
Herbert also got a little lucky when he played Tomas Berdych at the right time, too, with the Czech struggling physically after a long match the previous day and he appeared to be having back issues.
The odds of around 1.50 on Tsonga here compared to previous meetings show the slight improvement in Herbert and that injuries have perhaps taken their toll on Tsonga a bit, but I have very little confidence in Herbert in this sort of situation.
Playing Tsonga at home in a final is likely to be too much for the nervy Herbert and -2.5 games on Tsonga at 1.92 looks the bet here, with the latter having a far superior temperament and deep-seated self-confidence than Herbert.
Over at the Sofia Open it’s mildly annoying to see the man we backed outright in the last ATP 250 event prior to this one (in Sydney) Marton Fucsovics make the final, but he looks to have a tough one against the in-form Daniil Medvedev.
It’ll be a third career clash between them and the odds have certainly shifted a fair bit since their last two, both of which were priced up as roughly even money affairs.
Medvedev won both (on his worst surface of clay and on outdoor hard) and after a slow start in his opening round here this week against Robin Haase the Russian has impressed, culminating in a straight sets win over Gael Monfils on Saturday.
This time around against Fucsovics he’s a 1.19 chance and that’s far too short for me to take an interest, but I don’t fancy Fucsovics to get close to the upset, really.
There could be one in Cordoba though, with the nervy Guido Pella likely to seriously feel the heat as a 1.40 favourite against the wild card Juan Ignacio Londero.
I said yesterday that Federico Delbonis wasn’t one to trust as a sub-1.30 favourite and he duly won one game in an absolute walloping by Londero, who went for everything, while Delbonis wilted under the pressure.
If Londero plays like that in the final he’ll win it, but who knows if the realisation of what he’s done this week in Cordoba will finally hit him?
Pella was complaining earlier in the week of having a knee problem and has had to take pills for the pain, which could be an issue after a three-setter yesterday, but I’d be equally as worried about his nerves.
After beating Diego Schwartzman as underdog he revealed: “Yes, today was different because in reality he was the one who was going to feel all the pressure since he’s better ranked than I am. Perhaps that’s why I could play more relaxed at the end. Maybe yesterday against Albert [Ramos] I felt that it was me who had the responsibility to win, and that’s what tennis is about.”
Anything is possible in this one, but I sure wouldn’t be backing Pella at 1.40.
Best Bet
0.5 points win Tsonga -2.5 games to beat Herbert at 1.92
