ATP Casablanca – Quarter Final – Andreas Haider-Maurer vs Damir Dzumhur
ATP Casablanca started the main clay season and it’s been a tournament which has captured the imagination so far, with home favourite Lamine Ouahab creating huge waves. The portly Moroccan has taken care of both Robin Haase and last year’s champion Guillermo Garcia-Lopez in straight sets (as underdog), and welcomes Spaniard Daniel Gimeno-Traver into the Casablanca cauldron around lunchtime.
However, the later matches caught my eye from a value perspective, with both Martin Klizan and Damir Dzumhur looking like solid value as underdogs this afternoon, and it’s the latter that I’m particularly interested in.
The man from Bosnia-Herzegovina is something of a clay specialist, and has boosted his rank to 92, just five places off his career best 87, and this ranking is set to rise after getting the better of Paul-Henri Mathieu in straight sets, before Marcel Granollers retired a double break down in the first set in the second round on Wednesday.
Stats-wise, Dzumhur hasn’t got much experience on the ATP Tour, but the 22 year old has a very strong record in Challengers, winning 28/37 (76%) in the last 12 months on clay, holding 75.9% and 39.0% in those matches, illustrating that he’s definitely ready for the step up to ATP level. To put this into context, it equates to around a combined 102% at ATP level for a player of his age, showing that he’s easily top 50 level on the dirt.
His opponent Andreas Haider-Maurer also has enjoyed something of a breakthrough of late, and he’s close to breaking the top 50 for the first time. The Austrian also prefers clay, although he’s more of an all-courter than Dzumhur.
Interestingly on clay in Challengers, Haider-Maurer has a worse record than Dzumhur, winning 74% of his 46 surface matches in the last 12 months, holding slightly more (78.0%) but breaking less, at 34.3%.
This would equate to making Dzumhur a 1.88 favourite according to my model, which makes the market prices of around 2.50 very appealing indeed.
Dzumhur’s eight completed wins when SP underdog featured 7 wins in straight sets, so that’s a definite handicap option, and he’s only failed to cover 3 games in a win once since the start of 2013, so that’s clearly another line we can look to take.
In this case, I recommend a split-stake backing Dzumhur to win in straight sets, and another bet on him -2.5 games.
Recommendation: Back Damir Dzumhur -2.5 games at 3.10, and to win 2-0 at 4.33 (split stake)
Prices correct at time of writing.
By @Tennisratings.
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