ATP Tennis Betting: Bautista Agut could be tested by big serving Vanni in St. Petersburg

ATP Tennis Betting: Bautista Agut could be tested by big serving Vanni in St. Petersburg

There's round one and two action from St. Petersburg and Metz on the ATP World Tour on Wednesday and Sean Calvert returns to preview the day's play.

Debrief
A slow start from Damir Dzumhur cost us the opening wager of the day on Tuesday in St. Petersburg when the defending champion went a double break down at 0-3 and a point away from 0-4 against Lucas Miedler.

Dzumhur then won seven of the next nine games and 13 of the remaining 17 in the match (of course winning set two 6-3), but his slow start proved costly.

We did get on the board with a winner soon after though when Nikoloz Basilashvili was dominant in a straight sets win over Kenny De Schepper, never facing a break point and winning 84% of his service points.

Then there was a void when Marcos Baghdatis withdrew injured from St. Petersburg, but those who are with me on the outright or just took Jan-Lennard Struff on the day were happy when the German beat Andrey Rublev in straight sets.

Another outright, Matteo Berrettini, also won in Russia, but we lost Joao Sousa, who fell away after the opening set against Daniil Medvedev. 

St. Petersburg Open

Play begins at 11:00 UK time (13:00 local) on Wednesday with a very interesting clash between a qualifier and the number five seed.

Luca Vanni vs Roberto Bautista Agut

At first glance this opening match of the day looks a bit of a mismatch between the veteran Italian journeyman Vanni and the eight-time ATP World Tour titlist, but I’m not so sure.

RBA has regularly struggled in matches here in St. Petersburg, despite making the semi finals on three occasions (no further) and in his last 11 matches here he’s only won two of them in straight sets.

In his opening match here a year ago RBA dropped set two to Rogerio Dutra Silva, while the year before he dropped sets to Ricardas Berankis and Joao Sousa before losing to Stan Wawrinka in the semis.

Back in 2015 he dropped a set to Teimuraz Gabashvili, while in 2014 he went to a final set tie break with Evgeny Donskoy, so he has a history of grinding out his wins here on the slow indoor hard of St. Petersburg.

This time he comes here lacking the confidence that winning provides, with no match wins since Gstaad back in July, due to injury.

Vanni’s record on indoor hard at main level is scant, with only three matches played, but it shows that he’s held serve 87.5% of the time, played a tie break in each match and only broken serve 2.5% of the time.

He showed great serving form again in qualies, firing down 22 aces and winning 87% and 88% of his first serve points in his two matches, and RBA has struggled often against big servers over the years.

On indoor hard he’s 3-6 win/loss against the ones in my database (playing 0.32 tie breaks per set) and in his last 12 months on indoor hard against all opponents he’s played 0.29 breakers per set.

A price of 2-1 about tie break played here looks decent, while over games is another option, but I’d expect RBA to work it out in the end and the 3.95 about him winning this 2-1 looks the bet.

After Vanni versus RBA it’s the turn of Denis Shapovalov to try and fight off the Davis Cup fatigue, with the Canadian coming off the back of a five set battle at home and a long journey to Russia.

His round one draw looks kind though against the journeyman Adrian Menendez Maceiras, who is 5-14 all-time at main level on all surfaces and a fit and healthy Shapovalov should be too good for the Spaniard.

We’re guessing on Shapovalov’s physical state though, but in Menendez we have a player that’s only once beaten a top-50 opponent in his career and that was 9-7 in a final set tie break against Steve Johnson after Johnson blew a 5-2 final set lead (and 6-3 in the tie break).

Many observers will no doubt be interested in the clash between Stan Wawrinka and Karen Khachanov and it should be an entertaining match, featuring two players that like to play aggressively and go for their shots.

It’s of little interest to me as betting heat though, with Wawrinka’s level up and down since his return from long-term injury and Khachanov coming off the back of two singles and the doubles in Davis Cup this past weekend.

That one is set for around 15:00 UK time on Centre Court and the match following that one at (not before) 16:30 UK time sees the retiring Mikhail Youzhny play perhaps his final career match.

The veteran Russian is meant to be retiring after this week, but I wonder if he’ll play on if he doesn’t get the two more wins he needs to reach 500 match victories?

If he takes down the badly out of form Mirza Basic on Wednesday he’ll probably face Bautista Agut next and losing that would leave Youzhny on 499 career wins, which would be a shame, as only Yevgeny Kafelnikov of all the Russian players has won 500 career matches at the moment.

On the indoor hard stats alone in the last 12 months Basic would be a bet as a 2.12 underdog, with the Bosnian holding a very impressive service hold/break total of 112.2 in his nine matches in these conditions at main level.

Perhaps a return to indoor hard is what Basic needs, as he’s currently on a horrible run of form that’s seen him fail to even win a set in his last six matches (lost 13 of his last 15 matches).

If this wasn’t Youzhny’s stage on the occasion of his retirement I’d be backing Basic here for sure, but in these circumstances I’ll pass.

After that at around 18:00 UK time it’s another of our outrights in action, as Martin Klizan takes on Fabio Fognini in an encounter that’s guaranteed to entertain one way or another.

Fognini leads the head-to-head 4-2, but it’s Klizan that won both of the finals they contested, one of which coming here in St. Petersburg back in 2012, and they haven’t met at all since 2015.

Klizan said after his round one win over Evgeny Donskoy that he “feels very comfortable in this arena” and so he should after increasing his career mark to 6-0 at this event and his hold/break total here is now a whopping 128.6.

Fognini is twice a finalist here (8-5 win/loss and hold/break of 100), but Klizan may well have the edge with that match under his belt already on this Centre Court, while Fognini hasn’t played since losing to John Millman at the US Open.

The Fog said he was “going on vacation for a while,” after the Millman loss, so I’m not sure what his preparation for this week has been like (if any) and I’m hopeful of a Klizan win here.

I can’t say that it’s one to bet on though, as anything is possible with this pair.

The two matches on Court 1 involve three players that were involved in Davis Cup at the weekend and in the case of Ilya Ivashka also having played qualies to make round one in St. Petersburg.

Ivashka has played four matches in four days, while Denis Istomin withdrew from Sunday’s Davis Cup singles citing a right ankle injury, having played five sets in Friday’s singles and four sets in Saturday’s doubles.

Guido Pella, who faces Ivashka, went five sets in his singles rubber on clay back in Argentina, so it’s little wonder that these two matches have been shunted out to Court 1.

Istomin played doubles on Tuesday (as did Shapovalov), but who knows what sort of condition the players on Court 1 will be in on Wednesday.

I’ll update this page with Metz information on Wednesday.

Best Bets

1 point win Bautista Agut to beat Vanni 2-1 at 3.90

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