Sofia and San Diego Preview

I was going to post this preview with a picture of Sofia Kenin as the header. Because do you know what you get when search Sofia tennis open in Google? Hundreds of pictures of Sofia Kenin in Australia.

Alas, I don’t cap womens tennis. So, it’s just a picture of center court at the Armeec Arena in Sofia. This week the tennis tour is uniquely split between eastern Europe and the west coast of North America. Normally we’d be in Russia heaing east for the Asian Swing but with Covid cancelling that and Indian Wells being re-scheduled to October… we have half the tour in Bulgaria and half the tour at the one-year Indian Wells warm up in San Diego. Even more oddly, one is outdoors and one is indoors. Go figure.

Sofia has been one of the most poorly attended 250’s in my time handicapping tennis. It uses its wildcards to benefit it’s home country players (I mean, really, that’s the way it SHOULD BE!) which means guys ranked outside the top 200 usually instead of fancy names and it is generally held in a window where players have their focus elsewhere. That being said, when top ranked players have attended, they have dominated the weak fields - four of the five winners at this (newer) tournament include RBA, Dimitrov, Medvedev and Jannik Sinner. Sinner wasn’t in the top 20 yet but he was already well established with two semi-finals and ranked 44th at 19 years old, so it wasn’t that great of a shock (he was single digits on the outright market at the time). There has been no defining trait amoung the champions in Sofia other than they’ve been top of class (even in the year where there was a shock champion, Mirza Basic beat top ranked Wawrinka in the semis in a tightly contested match) , so I don’t think the goal here is to find the 50/1 shot. This year’s draw is no different than previous years, with a real stars and scrubs distribution - a top 20ish guy headlining each quarter and a bunch of guys with outrights in triple digits.

Conversely, in San Diego we have one of the unique Covid-era 250s that has a field illuminated like a 500 level event. There are ten players from the top 30 and only four guys are outside the top 60 (one is Nakashima who is surely headed there at only 20 years old, one is Kwon, coming off his first title in Nur Sultan and one is Sir Andy Murray; just missing is Dominik Koepfer, ranked… 64th). That’s pretty incredible. We have no data for this as it’s a brand new event on a one-year Covid exemption. But, seeing as it is being held just down state from next weeks Indian Wells and it is on outdoor hards, in windy conditions (and there has been only six tiebreaks in 33 sets so far , yet eighteen sets of 9 games or less), I’m guessing it is playing, like Indian Wells, a little slower than a medium hard court.

Let’s dig into the fields.

Sofia

There is a good chance Sinner runs through this field again. He is completely suited to indoor tennis - in his very brief career he has a 0.656 winning percentage on indoor hards (that’s incredible). He has made four hard court finals in the last 12 months, starting here last year with his first title. He is the odds on favorite, he is my odds on favorite, he has the best three year data set of anyone in the draw not named Gael Monfils and he seems motivated (he won Washington six weeks ago and he made the fourth round of the US Open). He’ll have to play a fairly favorable too - all three of the main competition in his quarter is coming from Nur Sultan, including Duckworth who is off his first final. The second quarter holds Bublik and Krajinovic, both of whom have been known to struggle late in the events (Bublik has an FAA-like finals record and has made seven semis, all of which have been a struggle; Kraj has also made four finals, including two indoors and has similarily lost them all and at 29 is approaching Struff/Benneteau territory). Coincidently, Bublik and Kraj are the two highest ranking non-title winning players on tour right now!

The third quarter is a mess. If you were going to go digging for a long shot, this would be the section, given DeMinaur’s recent struggles. My pick would be Ymer (22/1) or Seppi (50/1) but Ymer is too inconsistent and Seppi is too old. Truthfully, I don’t see anyone in the third quarter being able to beat Monfils/Sinner or Ivashka/Sinner back to back.

The fourth quarter has both guys that I show value on against my numbers (I show value on Pospisil too but I don’t really consider him a threat). Monfils has actually had a nice hard court season after like 18 months of not really playing or paying attention to tennis. The issue is possibly age - he has won two matches and lost his third at four straight events (Toronto, Cincinnati, US Open, and Metz). I don’t think that is a coincidence. So, I am going to go with the dangerous floater in the draw and the “hot” item on the mens tour this summer - Ilya Ivashka. Ivashka has been on fire since all the way back in grass season. If you excuse Cincinnati, where he had to go through qualies, he has made the third round of the last seven events he has entered; he won his first title in Winston Salem and he made the semis last week in Nur Sultan. He likes indoor tennis (above 0.500 for his career and above 0.500 in tiebreaks) and is playing with a ton of confidence.

In addition to playing Sinner and Ivashka at less than sexy prices, I am going to play Sinner to win his quarter at 1/1. It’s not a great price at all but I can’t get my prcie anywhere near it. I have him -389 to Egor, -350 to Paire and -268 to Ruus. No combination there gets me close.

Picks
Sinner +300 x1, Bet365
Ivashka +550 x1, Bet365
Sinner Q1, +100 x1, Bet365

San Diego

There is no data to work off here in San Diego. So, it is going to be a series of educated guesses. My initial read when I saw the schedule was to consider fading everyone who was going to play Laver Cup. But, the majority of them get two days off and DSS gets a relatively soft landing with a late match on Tuesdy against a qualifier. So, I think after comparing the incredible dearth of activity since the US Open of anyone in the draw and the apparent high intensity of the Laver Cup, I actually think playing in Boston might be an advantage.

I fear Rublev may be caught looking ahead to Indian Wells andmaybe the courts might be a tad slow for him (four of his titles have come indoors and his two finals losses this year were at quicker venues in Halle and Cincy). Diego is in Rublev’s quarter and the conditions should suit him, I show value on him against my number, I doubt he has any illusions of winning Indian Wells and he and Rublev just played a super competitive macth on a slower surface in Boston.

The other person I show value on is also someone who shouldn’t be lookng ahead. FAA is in great form, he made the semis in New York, losing to Meds, he played what looks like a competitive match against Berrettini in Boston, travel should not be arduous as he has been in the US since July, and he has a favorable quarter - Dimitrov and Fucs look diminished, Karatsev looks tired and Hurkacz is coming from a title in France.

Picks
FAA +600 x1, Bet365
DSS +1600 x1, Bet365