Istanbul CH January 19th

A rough start to my Challenger betting, as Lorenzi and Ram got destroyed, Celikbelik folded late in the third and Giustino missed covering by a half game.

The courts seem really quick when you are watching but there has was only two tiebraks today across seven matches and there were only five during qualies (2 for Menezes and 2 for Clarke). That leads me to think the serving is weaker than anticipated meaning lack of quality is outweighing court conditions.

To that end I tried to steer towards players who have been breaking serve more than 20% of the time on hard courts.

I show a big edge, my biggest of the first round, on Elahi Galan. I’m still practicig flat betting (for now) so, it’s just the spread bet. I feel comfortable with Galan here; he showed well in Delray, losing a competitive match to the eventual tourney winner and Menezes had to rely on tiebreaks in both of his qualies matches - he has a career losing record in tb’s so if a set gets there I’d look for Galan to steal it.

I have the Bagnis/Zhang line so wrong that I am going to avoid this match. The same happened with Rinder/Ram last night, I went with Ram and he got steamrolled. I’m missing something here and I’ll have to dig into it before Aussie tennis resumes.

The Huesler line is right on. I’m within 1%. An -4.5 is a big number on fast, indoor courts in three sets.

I have the Nakashima line massively incorrect as well. That is easy to chlk up to incomplete data on Nakashima. I suspect he wins easily but, I’ll stay away from the match in every sense because -500 or more feels wrong.

Rinderknech doesn’t fit the bill on the return side but he is hard to ignore. He’s 4-1 in 2020 and he’s only dropped two sets, both obviously in the loss to Mmoh in the final qualifying round in Doha. In his four wins he is dominating - 8-0 in sets and he has only lost as many as four games once. The competition hasn’t been bad either as he he’s beaten Hoang, Ramanathan and Daniel Masur.

I show a small amount of value on Bonzi but I am going to avoid this. The line opened the other way and money has poured in on Rola. I suspect that is due to the 2-0 head-to-head. Either way, I’ll stay away.

I show value on Gomez, opposite Hoang. I find that strange. Hoang should definitely be favored. But, I think this number has gotten away and now Hoang is being over-valued by the market. I cetainly don’t want to be backing Gomez here but if the number keeps going and a +4 appears that might be worth taking.

I show just over 10% value on Rosol but, Rosol is on The List. Betting on him is just asking for a rollercoaster and some Rolaids.

I’m happy to fade Gaio here even though this line is basically exactly what I think it should be.