September 22, 2016

ATP St Petersburg Tennis Handicap Betting Preview – Thursday 22nd September by @Tennisratings

ATP St Petersburg – 2nd Round – Alexander Zverev vs Daniil Medvedev

The ATP Tour returns to action today with tournaments in Metz & St Petersburg providing more humane times for European bettors than the WTA events in Asia.

At 1pm UK time, Alexander Zverev takes on Daniil Medvedev. This match forms the focus of my latest Eastbridge Sports Betting Broker, tennis handicap betting preview.

Both players are young prospects with high potential, with the justifiable hype around Zverev’s future level being well known.  However, home player Medvedev may have flown under many bettors’ radar a little. The young Russian achieved  superb results on the Challenger Tour, boosting his ranking over 100 places in little over three months.

Medvedev’s solid showing in the Hamburg 500 on clay in July was a big trigger. Coming through qualifying and beating Jan-Lennard Struff before losing a final set tiebreak to the veteran dirtballer Daniel Gimeno-Traver.  Following this, Medvedev was only defeated twice in three Challenger events. To ATP players Denis Istomin (in two tiebreaks) and Florian Mayer. In these three events, Medvedev’s performances read quarter-final, runner-up, winner. So, it is clear that he is a man in form, and his statistics have improved dramatically.

The Prices

 ATP regular Zverev is unsurprisingly the favourite, at around 1.40, with Medvedev currently available at around 3.30.

My model made Zverev very short indeed, with a price of 1.66 generated.  This was largely due to the extreme, and rapid, improvement of Medvedev, and Zverev’s mediocre stats away from clay.

The Tournament So Far

Zverev certainly didn’t have it his own way in the first round against another young Russian prospect, Karen Khachanov, on Monday.  Khachanov led by a mini-break in the first set tiebreak, and by a break in the second set. Before being broken in two consecutive service games towards the end of the second set.

Medvedev, after a tight start, eased past the 19 year old Alexander Bublik, 6-4 6-0. Creating 10 break points in eight return games in the process.

Hold/Break Stats

 Zverev’s record away from clay is still quite mediocre.  On clay, the German is very strong, holding 78.1% and breaking 28.4% (combined 106.5%) in the last 12 months. But on hard/indoor hard combined this falls to 80.1% and 18.8% (combined 98.9%).  He’s barely been able to register a win percentage much over 50% in this time period on hard or indoor hard, winning 16/29 matches.

Medvedev’s exposure to the ATP level is limited. But we can adjust his Challenger and Qualifier data to ATP level, using reduction ratios.  This showed him to be already at an average ATP level on the surface, with combined figures around the 100% mark.

Historical Trends

Zverev, as his hold/break stats and record on hard/indoor hard indicate, relatively struggles away from clay, and the market is yet to fully understand this, over-rating him considerably.

Indeed, on hard/indoor hard he has lost his last three matches priced between 1.20 and 1.49 (to Yen-Hsun Lu, Yuichi Sugita and Dan Evans) and required three sets to achieve his last two victories in the price range, against Malek Jaziri and Luca Vanni.

In total, Zverev has only won five out of 13 matches in straight sets in this price range in his career, with Medvedev (when priced 3.00-5.99 on hard/indoor hard) having only lost in straight sets twice in six matches in that price range.

Recommendation

Considering the value on Medvedev, taking a position on him looks a solid strategy.  Given the fact that he’s not lost often in straight sets, and Zverev has also failed to win easy when a strong favourite, backing Medvedev +1.5 sets looks an excellent handicap betting proposition.

Tennis Handicap Betting Recommendation: Daniil Medvedev +1.5 sets at 1.86

Prices correct at time of writing.

By @Tennisratings.

Eastbridge Sports Betting Brokerage, winners welcome!

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