Madrid Outright Preview
I for one, loved blue clay. Tennis is all about distinctiveness and change and adaptation - hard courts to indoors to carpet to clay to grass to seaside to 9,000 feet up a mountain, to different tennis balls at every venue.
I have no idea why blue caly didn’t catch on (other than three pretty prominent tennis players openly complained about it).
Anyway, I didn’t have a ton of time this week (given the size of the field, Nascar, Aussie Rules Football, and well, it’s spring outside). But, seeing as outright odds didn’t really change after day one and there have been no meaningful upsets (outside of Grigor, of course!) I figured I would give the outright market a look tonight.
Here’s the field and their odds before things kicked off Sunday:
Let’s start at the top with Nadal. He is the tournament favorite by leaps and bounds. That is no surprise. But, despite having five titles here it is certainly the clay tournament with the most losses for him. A full 29% of his CAREER clay losses have come at this event alone. Of course, the reason for that is Madrid is at some 2,100 feet of elevation (667m). That’s not Quito or Gstaad levels but it is certainly nothing to ignore. When he lost it has largely been to guys with big serves that can put him on the defensive (Federer, Thiem, Tsitsipas, Berdych) or guys who could grind with him in the thin air (Nalbandian, Murray twice, Gilles Simon). I think, given his losses already on clay this season and the depth of this field there are plenty of both options here this week - Tsitsipas, Rublev, Thiem could serve him off the court on a good day and Karatsev, Schwartzman and maybe Fog if he cares could break Nadal’s serve enough to make it a sweat. Either way, I can’t see Nadal being almost even money.
Tsitsipas is the second favorite and with his play this season, it’s with good reason. Semi-finals at the Aussie, semi finals in Rotterdam, finals in Acapulco, title in Monte Carlo, finals in Barcelona. He has only two losses outside the top 10 with one coming to PHH in a pure sandwich spot (he was defending a title in Marseilles, basically just out of kindness I think, coming off a semi-final in Rotterdam and with an eye to Acapulco) and one to Hurkacz in Miami,where of course Hurkacz was “peaking” and ended up winning the event. I can’t find fault anywhere. He has even managed to shed the choker label he had been acquiring (at least in my mind) in bigger events. I would consider him here but 3/1 seems crazy low and even though he is on the opposite side of the draw from both Thiem and Nadal (and Zverev and Rublev) he still has Karatsev in his quarter. I think if I could have nabbed his quarter price at plus money I might have been tempted. As it stands now, he is -125, so that’s a pass.
Thiem is 8/1. I have no doubt he could win this, if he was healthy. But, he hasn’t played tennis in quite awhile and Rublev has the serve to knock him around in the quarters if he is not healthy. Pass.
I don’t show any value on Rublev on the outright market. That’s mainly because despite all his success, his hold/break numbers are actually down from last year. And they are still the basis of my pricing model. Also, he has RBA in his half of the quarter (who he is 3-3 against) and then he has Thiem waiting in the quarters. Rublev’s path is conceivably RBA, Thiem, Nadal, Tsitsipas. There is no way you would come up short of 16/1 if you rolled over that moneyline parlay.
Sinner landed in Nadal’s quarter and as much as Nadal may have suffered ample losses here I don’t think Sinner is the next guy to hand him one. And like Rublev, a moneyline rollover would far surpass the 20/1 on offer if he has to go Nadal, Zverev, Thiem/Rublev, Tsitsipas. Pass.
Medvedev at 20/1 is pretty funny. He hasn’t played a clay match in 2021, he’s made one clay final in his career (Barcelona, 2019) and he got bagelled in the final. If anything, I am actively looking to fade Meds.
I think Karatsev can keep up with the big boys on any surface; I said as much during the Aussie Open. However, this isn’t the venue for him, up at altitude. His serve is going to be exposed if he gets into a tilt with someone who has a bigger one.
The king of the double faults is of my radar until he sorts himself out. I hope it’s soon.
Carreno Busta was hot as a fire-cracker coming into this event and I’m pretty happy I didn’t do this last night or I might have wasted some money on him (he was dumped out by Delbonis in a bit of shocker in round one).
I show value on RBA at 50/1. He’s 4-1 head to head with Thiem and 3-3 head to head with Rublev. He’s lost to Sinner three bloody times in the last four events though and crumbled in both finals he’s made this year. To anyone else (outside the top ten) that’s still a hell of a year. But, I think at 33, he may finally be showing his age. His quarter price is +650 and it’s tempting but, back to matches against Rublev and Thiem, despite the history, would probably do him in.
I also show value on Berrettini at 50/1. And I have no such qualms about his quarter. Meds is the big seed and as previously discussed, he is vulnerable. Berrettini has a monster serve and it should play up here. The fourth quarter loks the easiest draw and I think his first match (Fognini) may be his toughest. He has only been here once before but he comes in full of confidence, having taken down Belgrade in style. He’ll only have to face one of Nadal, Thiem and Rublev which is a plus if you want to take that 50/1. I’m plenty scared of the third quarter though and Nadal is still Nadal, so I think I’ll settle for the +400 on the quarter. He should be favored in every match and I think he probably holds serve about 92-93% of the time.
I also show value on Ruud this week but, his inability to beat the tippy top guys (or even keep it close really, he’s 2-8 career vs top ten and the only times he has won a set has been in those two wins) has me worried that he is headed down the David Ferrer path (not that there is anything wrong with that).
Picks
Berrettini +400, 4th quarter