This week’s ATP Tour tennis action at Lyon and Geneva is now well underway with all the first-round matches completed and today should see the completion of all the second-round matches, with a handful of them being completed yesterday. They included one of my outright selections at Geneva, Gojowczyk (40/1) who is through to the quarter finals and he will the winner of the suspended Seppi (16/1) vs. Zapatta Miralles match, which Seppi was winning 7-5 3-2 40-15 with a break at the time of writing.
At Lyon Millman (33/1) was a none-runner as he withdrew prior to the tournament starting with a hip injury. At the time of writing Thiem (6/5) was winning his opening match against Carballes Baena 6-2 4-3 (break up second set) and by the time you read this article he’ll have hopefully reached the quarter finals, where he will face veteran Garcia-Lopez for the second time having won their previous encounter at the 2016 French Open in straight sets.
There have been quite a few first and second round upsets so far this week at Lyon and Geneva. The most noticeable at Lyon were sixth seed Monfils losing his first match against the unseeded 22-year-old Marterer from Germany from a set up, seventh seed Sousa crashing out in his first match against the little-known qualifier Horansky from Slovakia and Delbonis losing his first-round match against Albot, who up to that point had lost six ATP Tour matches on clay in a row.
The biggest first and second round upsets at Geneva were Gojowczyk knocking out fourth seed veteran Ferrer, the unseeded and potential NextGen star Fuscovic from Hungary thrashing fifth seed Ramos Vinolas 6-1 6-2, Basic knocking out eighth seed Mischa Zverev, qualifier Zapata Miralles knocking out experienced veteran Florian Mayer and qualifier Rosol knocking out Vesely.
Looking at today’s second round match action and there are a few selections I like from a betting perspective. At Lyon the match between Albot and second seed Isner should be a close one given their two previous encounters this year on hard courts in America went to three sets, Albot winning the first at New York and Isner the second encounter at Delray Beach. There’s no reason why this match should be any different, so backing Over 22.5 Games (5/6) should return a profit.
Staying at Lyon, the last three encounters between compatriots, fourth seed Sock and the unseeded NextGen star Fritz, were all close three or five set encounters (Sock leads h2h 2-1). Fritz (11/8) beat Sock for the first time this year on clay at Houston and with the advantage of a match on the surface under his belt already this week and Sock looking out of form, I think the talented Fritz can take this one and level the head-to-head at 2-2 today.
Finally, at Geneva the second-round match between Querrey and Pella should be close as their recent encounter at Houston on clay went to three sets, Pella winning 2-6 7-6 7-6, and backing Over 22.5 Games (9/11) today should go close to returning a profit.
