It wasn’t our day in Monte-Carlo on Wednesday, with Jan-Lennard Struff, not for the first time, losing a match he should have won, while a below par Martin Klizan was outgunned by Dominic Thiem.
Indeed, only Dusan Lajovic of my list of underdogs won and instead it was unlikely dog winners in Taylor Fritz and Pierre-Hugues Herbert that caused upsets on the day over a misfiring Diego Schwartzman and an injured Kei Nishikori respectively.
The good news for underdog backers is that historically, the frequency of winning dogs increases in Monte-Carlo in round three and the quarter finals to 33% and 38% respectively.
And it looks like it’s going to be rather a windy day on Thursday in Monte-Carlo, which could be a bit of a leveller, but it would surely have to be a force 10 gale for Grigor Dimitrov to have any vague hope against Rafael Nadal.
Dimitrov took a set off Nadal here once, but that was six years ago, and I didn’t see anything at all in a match he ought to have lost against Struff that wasn’t much of an improvement on his level of the past year or so.
He might improve in a clash with Nadal, but if he doesn’t the -6.5 games on the Spaniard is a real possibility after he overcame his latest injury layoff in fine style on Wednesday.
But as far as viable underdog winners are concerned on Thursday the two that look like they hold decent chances for me are Fabio Fognini and Cameron Norrie.
Cameron Norrie vs Lorenzo Sonego
Norrie is a bit of a punter’s pal as betting underdog, with the Brit being hard to price up due to the fluctuations in his form and he’s now won nine of his last 15 (six of his last eight) at main level as underdog.
And in those six matches that he failed to win, he lost two in final set tie breaks, another one 7-5 in the final set and another in a final set, so he’s lost three of his last 15 matches in straight sets when priced up as underdog.
He’s often hard to price up as his confidence seems to either be there or not and it seems to be getting there again now after a run of four straight losses coming into this week.
His leftie forehand is very effective in these conditions and eventually it did for Marton Fucsovics on Wednesday (another underdog win) after the Hungarian lost his way from 5-2 up and crumbled to a straight sets defeat.
Now Norrie faces a first time meeting with Sonego, who has played well this week, but the Italian is running at 85% break points against him saved in Monte-Carlo and 50% of the ones he’s created converted – and those rates seem likely to drop.
It’s also Norrie that has the better main level clay court service hold/break totals (105.5 from 14 matches) compared to Sonego (98.2) and the telling number here is that Sonego has only broken serve 15.9% of the time on the red dirt at main level.
So, I’m not too sure why Sonego is as short as 1.55 for this, other than him having beaten Karen Khachanov, but that’s not a huge achievement at the moment and a bit of value on Norrie here for me.
I’ll pass on Fabio Fognini, as he still seems to be struggling with injuries, but he’s certainly capable of beating Alexander Zverev, who’s lost eight times in the last 12 months as a 1.30 favourite or shorter.
Fognini said of his current condition: “I’m dealing with a pain on my right elbow, which is not healed, but I am not worried by it. My ankle condition did not progress, but it got even worse. I took my decision, it's not time to reveal it yet but I will play until the French Open, hoping to find the right week because I feel well while training.”
That might go some way to explaining his recent poor form and it’s enough to put me off, as Felix Auger-Aliassime’s withdrawal from the doubles did on Wednesday.
Dominic Thiem has a 5-0 career series lead over Dusan Lajovic and will probably be too strong again, but I’m hopeful that our man Stefanos Tsitsipas will be able to get the better of Daniil Medvedev on clay.
The slow conditions should be enough to give Tsitsipas the edge – it certainly seems the case on their respective clay stats – and the 1.71 about no tie breaks isn’t a bad option either.
Only 26% of the matches here in the last six years have featured a tie break and Medvedev and Tsitsipas have played none in their 10 sets against each other on hard courts so far.
Marco Cecchinato has had much the better of the career series lately against Guido Pella, with the Argentine winning only 38.6% of the points on second serve in their last three clashes, so the odds look about right there.
Borna Coric could, potentially, struggle physically after a real marathon versus Jaume Munar in the last round, but otherwise it’s hard to see the run of Pierre-Hugues Herbert’s continuing for much longer on this surface.
Novak Djokovic was poor again by his standards in round one, but it would be a huge shock if Taylor Fritz were to beat him on clay (or any other surface, really).
The Serb should find the backhand-to-backhand battle with Fritz much to his liking, but he’ll need to improve from recent non-major displays if he’s going to win easily.
It looks a difficult day for the underdogs and Norrie is the only one that really appeals.
Best Bet
0.5 points win Norrie to beat Sonego at 2.45
