
This week’s ATP action at Metz, France and St Petersburg, Russia is now down to the quarter-final stages and the biggest upset so far has been second seed Raonic crashing out at the first time of asking against veteran Youzhny at St Petersburg. The remainder of the seeded like top-seed Wawrinka, third seed Berdych, fourth seed Bautista Agut (advised 10/1), fifth seed Zverev, seventh seed Troicki and eighth seed Sousa (advised 25/1) are all still in action.
Wawrinka faces Troicki today and leads the head-to-head 5-0 so should progress, two of my tournament selections Bautista Agut and Sousa also face each other today and the Spaniard leads the head-to-head 5-2 and is favourite to progress to the semi-finals. Berdych faces Lorenzi and won their only previous encounter.
I’d rather be a layer of Berdych at the prices as he struggled to see off Kuznetsov in his first match and Lorenzi is the type of player who is capable of frustrating and making life difficult for Berdych if he’s not at his best. The one other quarter-final match at St Petersburg is between Zverev and Youzhny and this will be the third time they’ve met and Zverev leads the head-to-head 2-0.
At Metz we lost fifth seed Klizan and seventh seed Paire at the first round stage, but the remainder of the seeded players are still in action. Top-seed Thiem faces a tough one against sixth seed Gilles Muller today, Muller leads the head-to-head 1-0 and backing Over 22.5 games is worth considering as this match is sure to be a very close affair. Second seed Goffin faces eighth seed Mahout (advised 10/1); they’ve played each other twice on the ATP tour and the head-to-head stands at 1-1.
The impressive Lucas Pouille seeded three faces compatriot Benneteau and they’ve met twice before and the head-to-head stands at 1-1. Finally fourth seed Simon will face the unseeded Jaziri today and the Frenchman leads the head-to-head 3-0 and is favourite to progress to tomorrow’s semi-finals.