28th July Evening Match Previews

[Redhead]

Hi guys, with the European season drawing to a close a lot of tennis is going to be held in the evening GMT, which can only be good for the part time traders, here is tonight's preview courtesy of http://www.tennisratings.co.uk

There are four new tournaments this week and action got underway in Kitzbuhel this morning. This event - held at altitude in Austria - is the only European event, and also the only clay tournament, this week, as the European clay season draws to a close.

The US hard court season takes the focus, leading up to the US Open which starts at the end of August. Matches will generally be played in the European evenings, making it an excellent time of the season for recreational and beginner traders to get involved.

With there being a 48-man field for ATP Washington, there are ten matches tonight which is relatively high for a Monday schedule. Action gets going at 9pm UK time and despite statistics showing conditions to be a little on the quick side of average last year, my projected hold model - which does take this into account - has highlighted several matches of interest tonight.

In the openers, I like two slight favourites in Benoit Paire and Alejandro Falla, who enjoy clear statistical edges over opponents Frank Dancevic and Robby Ginepri, respectively.

However that has to come with several caveats. Paire's fitness - as well as his mental stability - is far from guaranteed but assuming he is on his game, he should be much better than his Canadian opponent.

Falla is a strange one - his price looks too good to be true and has taken a little drift as well, opening at 1.75 and now trading at 1.87. I don't particularly rate the Columbian generally but against a Challenger journeyman he should be too good unless there's something unaccounted for...

Looking at other matches, there are several where I expect holding serve to be more of a challenge than average. Ilya Marchenko is a player much stronger on return than serve, based on his Challenger stats, and he takes on Marinko Matosevic tonight.

Matosevic's 2014 stats have been improving of late and he starts at around 1.33 tonight which looks about right. Projected holds are low for both players, according to my model, although they are especially so for Marchenko, and taking on his serve seems a solid plan here.

Another match with two weak servers takes place between home player Donald Young and Yuichi Sugita. Sugita plies his trade mostly in Challengers but has a pretty strong hard court record in those and this may not be easy for Young, who starts at around 1.70.

With projected holds in the 60%'s, taking on either players' serve seems mandatory here.

There is also a women's event in DC, with eight matches on the card this evening. Unfortunately two of them have players - Kuwata and Black - with barely any available stats so leaving these two matches alone seems the safest policy. As with the men's event, stats show the conditions should play on the fast side of average.

One match with a strange price is Kiki Bertens against Sorana Cirstea. The Romanian opened at 1.97, but has drifted to 2.42, and this is bizarre based on the stats. I didn't see her 6-1 6-1 defeat to Voegele in Baku but many people have claimed it was an obvious tank - fairly logical as she has a lot of ranking points to defend in the near future. On that basis getting on Cirstea makes sense, but there could be more to it...

On the whole, the rest of the WTA matches in Washington have high projected holds with perhaps Vania King and Francoise Abanda's match having the best potential for breaks and swings. However, even that isn't enough to warrant laying the server unless both players are struggling to hold.

Over in Stanford - where there is a Premier event - there are six matches on the schedule, and projected holds are also generally high.

19 year old Sachia Vickery has qualified for the main draw and she faces Shuai Zhang tonight. Zhang starts at 1.46 and that looks generous to me, with perhaps the age and unknown quantity to many about Vickery being a reason why that is the case.

In her four main draw matches in the last 12 months, Vickery has held just 46.2%, and whilst this rises to 63.7% across qualifiers, this would mean her serve will be exposed at WTA level currently. Certainly against an opponent that boasts strong return stats (43.6% at WTA level on hard courts in the last year) her serve should be tested, and opposing Vickery's serve looks a good plan here.

Finally, I've added a new article which looks at Challenger players with a view to stepping up to the ATP Tour. You can check that out here http://www.tennisratings.co.uk/making-t ... oung-chall.

Good luck in the markets and stay green!