vs.
ATP (Unicef Open) - 17.06.2010, 13:00 CET
Single Dime (3 units): Xavier Malisse (BEL) - Alejandro Falla (COL)
Single Dime (3 units): Xavier Malisse (BEL) - Alejandro Falla (COL)
Tournaments right before Grand Slams are always tricky to bet on because it's extremely difficult to predict who plays with highest effort and who will be tanking in early rounds. At the moment I suppose that both these players are in here to play their best tennis because they're quite average, drifting around 60th-80th place in the rankings for a while and they may produce a lot more in here than in Wimbledon. Firstly I think that experienced Malisse is in rock solid form right now, which was already visible last week in London, where he was capable of beating out-of-form Djokovic and reached a quarter-final. He's already defeated Ram and Brands in here and to be honest his serving is working pretty well, which is always really important on grasscourt. What's more he's been playing a lot matches on that surface in his long career, so his movement and abilities because of experience are good enough to beat average opponents. Falla is just one of those, especially that he ain't well-prepared to play on grasscourts. He might not be typical claycourter, though being South American because he likes hardcourts and play quite offensive tennis with lots of powerful, top-spin forehands, however he wasn't successful on green surface ever. He lost easily against Federer last week 1-6 2-6, where he shows that service ain't in best shape right now, while I'm surely not buying his win over old Ljubicic in here, whose form and effort was highly questionable couple of days before Wimbledon. What's more (and may be most important in terms of betting) h2h between these players is 2-1 in Belgian player favor, with one game played on grasscourt, in which Xavier won against Alejandro 6-1 6-2 in 2009 year (so just year ago), when he was in way worse shape.
3 units (Single Dime) on Xavier Malisse (ML) (@ 1.629 Pinnacle)
