OTW Extra Email Archive - October 2017
A 25/1 winner - and a 7/1 shot for Zhuhai...
Monday 30th October 2017
In your Ones to Watch email today:
Lucas wins at 25/1...
After our 40/1 winner on Sloane Stephens, our Ones to Watch picks had been having a bit of a dry spell over the autumn.
All that changed last week though, with 25/1 Lucas Pouille winning the ATP Vienna title....
In Friday’s update email – ahead of the quarter finals – I talked about the value we’d got on Pouille at 25/1.
We also talked about the ‘hit-or-miss’ nature of our Ones to Watch picks, and last week has to go down as a classic example of that...
Our 66/1 (67.00) underdog selection Mischa Zverev went out in the 1st Round at the ATP Basel event. With 10/11 (1.91) favourite Roger Federer going on to beat 6/1 (7.00) second favourite Juan-Martin Del Potro in the final.
But in Vienna...
Our 25/1 (26.00) outsider Lucas Pouille went all the way to the final – and lifted the trophy.
Pouille dropped just one set in 5 matches all week, and finished in style on Sunday afternoon by beating 13/2 (7.50) tournament second favourite Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in straight sets in the final, 6-1, 6-4.
That’s a fantastic 25/1 win for our Ones to Watch selections, coming near the end of what’s been a very good season for us.
Were you on Pouille?
How did you get on? I love to hear your winning stories...
Get in touch by sending me a message >>
Ones to Watch this week…
The men are in Paris this week for the final ATP Masters event of the season.
There are no Outright Winner prices available as I write – with the 1st Round matches in-play today – but we may take a look later in the week if anybody looks like breaking through the draw.
Roger Federer has pulled out, and World No.1 Rafael Nadal goes off as the 6/4 (2.50) tournament favourite.
The women’s season comes to an end with the WTA Elite Trophy event in Zhuhai.
This is the ‘second tier’ end of season WTA title event, after the highest ranked players were in action in the WTA World Tour Finals in Singapore last week.
Caroline Wozniacki was a 9/1 (10.00) winner in Singapore, beating Venus Williams (also 9/1) in the final.
The prices are similarly bunched up for this week’s Zhuhai tournament. The 12 players taking part are split into four groups, with the group winners going through to the semi finals.
Here are those four groups of players, along with the overall tournament Outright Winner prices (decimal odds in brackets):
Julia Goerges 7/1 (8.00)
Kristina Mladenovic 25/1 (26.00)
Magdalena Rybarikova 11/1 (12.00)
Shuai Peng 11/1 (12.00)
Elena Vesnina 16/1 (17.00)
Coco Vandeweghe 8/1 (9.00)
Barbora Strycova 8/1 (9.00)
Anastasija Sevastova 10/1 (11.00)
Sloane Stephens 7/1 (8.00)
Angelique Kerber 7/1 (8.00)
Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova 10/1 (11.00)
Ashleigh Barty 7/1 (8.00)
A 7/1 shot for Zhuhai...
As the prices above show, the bookies aren’t particularly keen on any one player.
The only genuine ‘long-shot’ there is Kristina Mladenovic at 25/1 – and that’s understandable for a player so woefully out of form. Mladenovic is on a 10-match losing streak including 9 consecutive 1st Round defeats – losing 9 of those 10 matches in straight sets, 2-0.
Julia Goerges on the other hand is in a good run of form, and has had a great season by her standards all round. The German is in the same group as Mladenovic and that’s an instant plus right now.
Goerges is currently No.18 in the world rankings. She is ranked up in No.2 in the WTA stats for Most Aces this season though, and is also in the Top 10 for Percentage of 1st Serve Points Won with a very respectable 72.6%.
Those serve stats could prove important this week at this indoor hard event. The Zhuhai tournament is in just its third year – the 2016 winner was Petra Kvitova, and the 2015 final saw Venus Williams beat Karolina Pliskova (who is No.1 for Most Aces this season)...
Kvitova, Williams and Pliskova are all big hitting, ‘power’ players and three of the best servers in the women’s game. Goerges’ serve stats could well make her a contender this week.
There’s also a little season-long form comparison to be made with last week’s WTA World Tour Finals winner Caroline Wozniacki here. Wozniacki was ‘always the bridesmaid’ this season with six runner-up appearances in finals – followed by a tournament win at last in Tokyo, followed by last week’s Singapore win in her very next tournament.
Goerges has also had a consistent match-winning season, reaching three finals and finishing runner-up – before making the trophy-winning breakthrough and winning the Moscow title last time out...
Form and momentum are often key factors, and Goerges ticks a good box there.
On the motivation front, a title win here would truly be a career highlight for the 28-year-old Goerges. The same couldn’t be said for the likes of Angelique Kerber (a Grand Slam winner, and No.1 in the world this time last year), or Coco Vandeweghe (reached the semi final at the US Open and Australian Open this year – and expected to go one better in the Grand Slams sooner rather than later).
Considering her group this week, her overall 2017 form and her recent title-winning form – Goerges is my Ones to Watch pick at 7/1 here.
One to Watch this week:
Outright Winner – Each Way terms: 1/3 odds 1-2 places
Play starts in Zhuhai at 7.30am Tuesday, UK time.
I’ll be back soon with more Ones to Watch for you, including details of our first look at the 2018 season.
Enjoy the tennis…
Best wishes,
