Dubai + Acapulco

Let’s be clear - I want to go to Acapulco and sit in the west facing nosebleed seats at Center Court (it’s $500 round trip, 20 hours each way, to fly there. I looked it up after seeing this picture again).

I spent the weekend working on my putrid tennis model and therefore didn’t spend much time pondering this week’s outright markets. Now that we’ve been through the first round, I’m going to see if there is still some value out there.

Dubai

The top of this bracket has become a bit of a mess. No Stan, no Coric; Thiem and De Minaur out instantly. I think anyone of Krajinovic, Shapovalov, Hurkacz or Khachanov could make the final from the upper half.
The courts are playing a tad slower than in previous years (there have been tiebreaks in 13% of sets so far vs 15% last year and 18% the year before) and I think of those four players the conditions suit Hurkacz and Krajinovic a little more. Krajinovic broke serve 28% of the time on hard courts last year and Hurkacz is running over 23% this year. Shapo is best on quicker indoor courts and Khachanov has been losing big, tight matches all year (third set tiebreak loss to Sinner, three tiebreak sets in a loss to Berrettini, twelve game third set loss to Tsitsipas).
I showed value on Krajinovic before the event began and I think the 14/1 available now is still pretty decent. He is a -150 favorite against Harris, I make him a pick’em against Nishikori and I’d make him a pick’em or a slight dog to Khachanov. If he can avoid Rublev in the final the 14/1 is great. If he gets Rublev in the final the moneyline rollover on Harris/Nishi/KK/Rublev runs about 18/1. I’ll take Kraj over Hurkacz as my choice because Hurkacz has looked rough since being in Australia - bad loss to Travaglia, bad loss to Ymer, bad loss to ADF.

I think the bottom half is straight up still Rublev’s world - even with RBA, Karatsev and Sinner. RBA is playing for the fifth week in a row and has two finals in that time period - both matches he blew. Sinner has the toughest path of the bunch, having to go RBA, Karatsev, Rublev, and then the final. He also, like Shapo, is better on quicker courts (indoor title, title on Aussie Open courts). Karatsev, I think, will keep making noise but I am not sure if he is beating top guys like Rublev.

Picks:
Krajnovic +1400, x0.5
Rublev +175 x2

Acapulco

This tournament, despite being around since the early 90’s and almost always being held in the month of March, has only been a hard court event for the past six years. Those six years have produced an eclectic group of trophy holders too. There has been clay favoring ‘return specialists’ like David Ferrer, slamming ‘servebots’ like Sam Querrey and Nick Krygios, to go along with Slam-winning, all-around greats of the game, like Rafael Nadal, Juan Martin Del Potro and Dominic Thiem.

Isner is the only true ‘servebot’ left in the draw and he is easy to exclude with his lack of match fitness. Djere is a pretty clay centric player. I don’t think Musetti, Korda, Koepfer or Griekspoor are ATP reay yet, in the sense that they are not taking down potentially Zverev and Tsitsipas in succession. Fog and Kecmanovic show more hard court game than Djere but I am not sure their hard court stats merit consideration (Fog has only maintained a hard court h/b over 100% once in the last decade). Cam Norrie should actually enjoy these conditions (he made a final in windy Auckland) but he is 0-4 in his matches against Raonic and Zverev without ever taking a set (he presumably has to face both) and in general he doesn’t fare well against the big, tall servers on tour (stole a tb from Anderson and a tb from Isner but is otherwise 0-6 off clay against the big fellas).
Tiafoe kind of fits the mold of where Querrey was at in 2017 when he made a surprise run here but, he struggled mightily to get past Nakashima in round one and he is coming off of the Golden Swing, so fatigue may be an issue (he and Djere are the only player’s in the draw who attended Santiago and won their first round match).
I would love to bet Raonic here. On paper he has very similar stats to Kyrgios in 2019 when he won and Kevin Anderson and Taylor Fritz when they made finals runs here; 90% hold and just under 20% break percentage. The issue with Raonic is, as always, health. I can’t guarantee he won’t pull up lame; especially considering he’ll have to play five days in a row this week, no days off.
I think Tsitsipas is in the same boat as Raonic when it comes to stats - he has an eerily similar stat line to Kyrgios and Anderson and I think the fact that Krygios is the only big hitter to win here with undr 20% break percentage is telling (in 2017 even Querrey was ‘peaking’, he had his best season ever and broke serve 25% of the time). Tsitsipas is too serve reliant and that can be tricky in these conditions. He is also travelling from Europe for this event (like 8 time zones); that’s going to catch up with him (no one has won this event coming from Europe - every finalist in the last seven years has either had the week off or played in the Western Hemisphere the week before).
That leaves four guys.

I am mildly interested in FAA. He’s shown incredible talent and consistency at 20 years old. I have two issues with him; one outdoor hards may be his worst surface? He’s made 7 finals already (incredible) but only one was on an outdoor hard court and he got demolished. Actually, that’s the second issue too - he gets demolished in every final. I am sure that will eventually course correct but, I am not willing to bet on it.

I know Ruud is considered more of a clay guy and I agree with that. But, his hard court numbers, both last year and so far in 2021 are amazing. He is holding serve consistently over 85% of the time in the last 18 months. The concern with him remains that this still isn’t always translating into wins - his career record is still below 0.400 on a hard court and he still has one of the worst tiebreak records on tour. Now, these courts don’t produce a lot of tiebreaks, that’s for sure (running around 10% of sets the last five years and 12% this year) but, I would assume if he plays Ranoic, Zverev AND Tsitsipas en route to a title, he’ll have to play one or two.

That leaves Grigor and Zverev. They both fit the mold of the mid-80’s hold percentage and mid-20’s break percentage that many of the winners have had here in the past - Querrey, Thiem, Delpo, Dimitrov himself in 2014. Dimitrov has won it before, Zverev made a final here. Neither guy played last week and neither guy was taxed in round one. They both have winnable round two mathes and should be comfortably favored in round three as well. They will both face stiff semi-final competition if this goes chalky and they get Tsitsipas and Raonic, respectively. But, they both hold recent wins in those head-to-heads and like I said earlier, conditions should favour these two.

Going with the same staking as in Dubai.

Picks:
Dimitrov +750, x0.5
Zverev +200, x2