ATP Tennis April 17th

Can’t believe my life has come down to just betting on Dan Evans on clay every day…

Saturday:

Fading Tsitsipas is probably a fool’s errand this week. He has covered the spread (or was on his way to doing so) in all three matches he has played and he’s beaten excellent clay opponets in Karatsev, Garin and ADF. He’s only been broken once all week and he isn’t even really performing above the norm on return. So, why back Evans? Evans was able to avoid a massive, black hole sized letdown spot on Friday, he is playing maybe his best tennis ever (he peaked like this in January too beating FAA and Coric on the way to his first ever title), he is keeping pace with Tsitsipas in the hold/break department (holding serve 88% of the time this week and breaking serve 35% of the time), and Evans is keeping pace in the shorter points with Tsitsipas - an area where you would think Tsitsipas would dominate, given his serve oriented game. If you look at it, the longer the points go, the more this match should swing to Evans. In 0-4 shot rallies Tsitsipas is winning 57% of the points played this week, while Evans is winning 54%. As expected. With 4-8 shot rallies they are both winning 52% of their points. But once the rally gets beyond 8 shots, Tsitsipas’ drops to 49% of pints won, while Evans soars to 60% - that’s drastic. Of course, the issue for Evans is the majority of points played are 4 shots or less (54%). So, if Evans can survive a few seconds into each point the match should edge his way. Five games seems like a lot and I’ll take it.

Rublev is peaking. Again. That was throwback Delpo tennis today. Running forehands, monster forehands, and timely serving. Yet, money is coming in on Ruud. I’ll wait and see if I can get a juicy -3.5 on Rublev or a plus money -4.

Picks:
Evans +5, -106, BM
Rublev hopefully at -4, +101 ish or -3.5 -125 ish