May 8, 2015

Tennis Handicap Betting Preview – Friday 8th May by @Tennisratings

ATP Masters Madrid – Quarter Final – David Ferrer vs Kei Nishikori

The Madrid Masters reaches the quarter-final stage today, and with Novak Djokovic withdrawing prior to the event and Roger Federer shocked by Nick Kyrgios, the draw is wide open and all eight players in the draw will feel they can progress from today’s matches.

In the final match of the round, starting at around 830pm UK time, David Ferrer takes on Kei Nishikori and my model reflects extreme market faith on the Japanese, therefore generating value on Ferrer.

On clay in the last 12 months, Ferrer has held less (80.1% compared to 86.1%) but broken more (36.7% to 30.2%) than Nishikori, so it’s very difficult to justify 1.42 on Nishikori, which is the best price in the market.

Nishikori has had the better of Ferrer in their 11 career meetings, winning seven, including five in a row prior to Ferrer’s triumph in their latest match, on the hard courts of Acapulco, in straight sets.

However, these matches were almost all very tight and only at the Australian Open this year has Nishikori won in straight sets – so Ferrer has taken at least a set on 10/11 occasions.

Further indicating the closeness of these head to head matches is the hold/break percentages for both players in these matches, going back to the start of 2013.

In these, Ferrer has held in 77/109 service games (70.6%) and Nishikori in 36/105 (65.7%), despite Nishikori actually winning five of the eight meetings.

These stats indicates two things:-

1) Ferrer has been very competitive and arguably the better player in these meetings, despite winning less than half of the matches. He’s just fallen short on key points.

2) There will be a lot of breaks of serve today, and matches involving two weak servers have a much higher propensity to go three sets – giving further weight to our position.

Overall, there is very little evidence to justify such a short price on the Japanese talent, and Ferrer to win at least a set looks a very reasonable proposition at a shade of odds-on.

Recommendation: Back David Ferrer +1.5 sets at 1.84.

Prices correct at time of writing.

By @Tennisratings.

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