30th JULY 2014 KITZBUHEL MATCH PREVIEWS

[Redhead]

With the current rain delay why not get up to speed with today's ATP Kitzbuhel match previews brought to us from http://www.tennisratings.co.uk

Today's action on the clay in Kitzbuhel starts in around an hour and there are eight second round matches on the schedule today, with most having some decent trading angles to get involved with...

In the opening match, Albert Ramos is very slight underdog against Maximo Gonzalez, who is more used to playing in Challengers. This price is based on Ramos' struggles in beating WR729 Victor Galovic in the first round, whilst Gonzalez had a decent win against the over-rated Pablo Carreno-Busta.

Stats indicate Ramos should be favourite. He's much more experienced at ATP level and comparing their Challenger stats on clay in the last year, he has a slightly better 74% to 70% win ratio, and has held 2.3% more whilst breaking 0.8% less. However, the ATP stats have more of a difference, with Gonzalez obtaining just one main draw win from five on his favoured clay in the past three years. In that time, Ramos has won 48 and lost 42 on the surface...

Bearing this in mind, and the fact that Gonzalez has a low projected hold, I feel laying the Argentine's serve should be viable today. Based on the Rolling Projected Holds in today's Tier Two Spreadsheet, Gonzalez's serve can be laid in many situations, unless he's holding very easily.

This is also the case for Jarkko Nieminen, who faces Juan Monaco in the second match on court. Both players were in finals last week so there shouldn't be a great difference in condition, although the bizarre nature of Monaco's win over Andrey Golubev yesterday puts some doubts in my mind...

Monaco starts at around 1.50 and that looks correct to me, as there's almost an 11% difference in how frequently these two players break opponents on clay, and with Monaco defending runner-up points, he should take this seriously.

Both players are worse than average for losing break leads and also for recovering break deficits, so laying either player a break up looks a good strategy.

Paolo Lorenzi is another player who can be laid a break up according to the break up/down stats, as he takes on Pablo Andujar.

Andujar is another player who was a finalist last week and he may be a little tired, but also may see this as a final chance to boost his ranking before the hard court season, where he won't expect to pick up many points.

The Spaniard starts at 1.40 which appears a little short based on fitness concerns, so any lay of Lorenzi a break up should be tempered by this knowledge. This should be a match where the Rolling Projected Holds come into their own, with it being very important to assess Andujar's level, without being able to see a live stream.

I'd also expect Pere Riba to struggle to hold against Andreas Seppi. The Spaniard has an atrocious record at ATP level, winning just 5 of 21 matches on his preferred clay in the last 3 years. In those he's held just 64.9% of the time, and I'd expect him to struggle to hold consistently today.

My main worry with Seppi is he doesn't tend to do things easily, but I feel that he's a little value at 1.48 for this match, and opposition of the Riba serve is recommended according to today's Rolling Projected Holds.

As I mentioned yesterday, David Goffin has been on an incredible run, adding yesterday's 2-0 victory over Kenny De Schepper to 15 consecutive straight sets wins in Challengers.

This has led to a huge over-reacting bandwagon today for his match against Philipp Kohlschreiber, who starts at 1.65 on what is arguably his best surface. It certainly is for returning, with the German breaking 28.1% on clay in the last 12 months, and this should enable Kohlschreiber to put pressure on the weak Goffin serve.

I feel that with there being value on Kohlschreiber today as well as Goffin having a low projected hold, general opposition of the Goffin serve is mandatory. Furthermore, Goffin has lost a break lead a shocking 57.1% on the ATP Tour in the past 12 months, and with Kohlschreiber strong at 39.7% for deficit recovery, this makes laying Goffin a break up a very attractive proposition.

The match where there could be the most breaks is the clash between Diego Sebastian Schwartzman and Marcel Granollers. After his superb, great value, thrashing of Alexander Zverev yesterday, Schwartzman is more realistically priced at 2.75 today against the Spaniard, who won this event last year.

Both players are stronger on return than serve, and that's especially the case for Schwartzman, who as I detailed yesterday, has incredible return stats but is a very weak server.

Laying either player's serve here seems a solid strategy. I don't have in-play data on Schwartzman due to him mainly playing in Challengers but I'd be surprised if it wouldn't be viable to lay either player a break up today.

The other two matches, between Dominic Thiem and Jiri Vesely, and Lukas Rosol and Andreas Haider-Maurer, have less trading avenues available, so I thought I'd sum up by saying that I hope Haider-Maurer doesn't play like this...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZOHXutQA8g

Good luck in the markets and stay green!