Tennis Betting Advice - April 2018

Vickery and Garcia play again tonight...

Thursday 5th April 2018

In your Ones to Watch email today:

  • Kvitova and Konta crumble on clay…
  • Vickery and Garcia play again tonight…

A quick update from this week’s two tournaments…

Kvitova and Konta crumble on clay…

You can never underestimate the importance of a player’s record on a particular surface.

In Tuesday’s preview of the WTA Charleston event – the first clay-court tournament of the women’s season – we deliberately stayed away from backing Petra Kvitova (7/1) and Johanna Konta (9/1).

Those single-figure prices said more about the players’ names and rankings than about their specific clay-court pedigree.

As we noted, Konta has never made a WTA final on clay, and only one of Kvitova’s last 16 runs to a final has been achieved on the notoriously tricky surface.

World No.22 Konta was knocked out last night by Hungarian teenager and World No.219 Fanny Stollar – taken out in straight sets, 6-3, 6-4.

World No.10 and two-time Wimbledon champion Kvitova was well beaten in the end by World No.77 Kristyna Pliskova, 1-6, 6-1, 6-3.

Both those ‘shocks’ were around 3/1 in the Match Winner markets. I didn’t back them, but they are good results for us nevertheless, as two of the favourites and seeds going out is always going to be good news for our Outright Winner picks…

Vickery and Garcia play again tonight…

In Charleston this week we’re on World No.7 Caroline Garcia at 14/1 Each Way, a player who unlike Konta and Kvitova has been a regular at this event over the years and actually likes the clay.

Garcia is in the top half of the draw and as such benefits from Konta going out, in that Garcia’s 14/1 (15.00) price has now been halved to 13/2 (7.50).

There are a few matches to go before there’s anything for us to get excited about, but looking at the draw-sheet as it stands today, I have to say this is a good chance for Garcia to go far this week.

Next up for our pick is a match with a fellow Frenchwoman this evening, World No.37 Alize Cornet (schedule for Midnight+). This should be a competitive match but Garcia leads the head-to-head 2-0 for completed matches (2-1 including a retirement), with their only previous meeting on clay ending 2-0 to Garcia at the French Open last year. Garcia is the 1/2 (1.50) favourite to win.

Down in Mexico at the WTA Monterrey (hard court), our 25/1 Each Way pick Sachia Vickery is due to play her second match at around 9pm this evening…

Vickery won her opening match 2-0 and was due to play again last night before rain brought a premature end to the day’s play in Monterrey. She faces Mexican World No.302 Ana Sofia Sanchez, who was given a wildcard to play here in her ‘home’ tournament.

This is a mismatch on the rankings and odds, with World No.91 Vickery priced at just 1/10 (1.10) to win – which is the shortest Match Winner price of the day across the WTA schedule.

In the WTA Monterrey Outright Winner market there’s a bit of a difference of opinion among the bookies, with some firms as short as 12/1 (13.00) about Vickery today while others still have her at 25/1 (26.00).

None of the top seeds in Mexico have tumbled yet, but all we can look for this evening is for Vickery to book herself into the next round and we’ll take it from there.

Once again it’s looking like we have a couple of value prices on our side this week.

Enjoy the tennis…

Best wishes,

Oliver Upstone

Tom Wilson

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