A great start to the 2018 European clay court season for followers of my outright tennis advice. At Marrakech I advised Andujar (50/1) and at the time of writing he was due to face Paire for the fourth time in the final and hopefully Andujar will repeat his most recent three set win at the Alicante Challenger this month. Over in America at Houston there will be a new and possibly the youngest ever winner of the tournament and there was a noticeable changing of the guard between the more established, experienced and veterans of the ATP Tour and the NextGen.
Norwegian number one Casper Rudd aged 20 and 22-year-old Garin From Chile, who are now both ranked inside the top-100, both battled their way to the final in impressive fashion beating numerous more experienced and/or higher ranked players. ATP 250 tournaments do tend to throw up more shocks, upsets and surprise finalists and while Rudd has been on my radar over the last twelve months Garin is definitely a player who I was aware of but wasn’t on my radar as a potential ATP tournament winner unlike Rudd.
On to this week’s ATP tennis action and the European clay court swing moves on to the first Masters 1000 Series on the surface at Monte Carlo and the King of clay and defending champion Nadal returns from a lay off missing Indian Wells and Miami as the top-seed and will attempt to win a mesmerising and unprecedented twelfth crown this week. Two-time Monte Carlo winner (2013 & 2015) Djokovic lines up as the top seed this week and the big question on may peoples lips will be how he will fare after shock early exits at Indian Wells and Miami.
The top-two seeds have performed well over the last decade and the top-seed has won four of the last ten titles (last Nadal 2018) and they were a losing finalist three times during this period (last Djokovic 2013), which should be a positive sign for Djokovic unless he has something serious hindering his performances like at Indian Wells and Miami recently. The Second seed has not performed as well as the top seed over the last decade winning two of the last ten titles (last Nadal 2010) and they were never a losing finalist during this period, which statistically at least does not bode well for Nadal’s chances this year but he’s one of only a few players like Djokovic and Federer who usually buck these types of trends.
Seeded players in general have dominated the tournament over the last decade and a player seeded no higher than five won the last ten titles (last Nadal 218) and a player seeded no higher than fifteen won nine of the last ten titles with Nishikori being the only unseeded player to reach the final during this period last year. While top-ten players have contested the majority of the finals over the last decade there have been more surprise winners and finalists over the last few years like Wawrinka winning in 2014 and sixth seed Berdych, thirteenth seed Monfils, fifteenth seed Ramos-Vinolas and the unseeded Nishikori reaching the last four finals.
From a betting perspective it’s no surprise the top two seeds Nadal and Djokovic are the first and second favourites. Nadal will no doubt have been spending the last couple of months preparing to win a record twelfth Monte Carlo Masters 1000 Series title and attempting to dominate the major clay tournaments leading up to attempting to win a record twelfth French Open. Age continues to diminish his chances as well as obviously playing with various injury problems but as ever you right him off at your peril.
At the prices I’m going to oppose Nadal and Djokovic and take a chance on a couple of proven clay court experts and Indian Wells winner and fourth seed Thiem (7/1) has to be taken seriously because on paper he’s by far the best clay courter in the second quarter of the draw. From the bottom half of the draw eleventh seed Cecchinato (250/1) is arguably one of the best clay court players on tour at present and he looks massively overly priced if Nadal is still carrying any significant injuries.
Selections:
Tournament
Thiem Win (7/1)
Cecchinato Win (250/1)
