I am more than happy to go against the grain here and take on what looks to be a little bit of recency bias towards Bonzi based on his Istanbul efforts.
Whilst the run to the final last week was Bonzi is indeed impressive, I don’t think it is impressive enough to have him listed here at a price of $2.00, or an implied win probability of 50%. I am not jumping on the Bonzi hype train just yet, and this looks to be a bit of a flat spot situation coming off one of his biggest finals appearances, as well as dropping the second and third sets in tiebreaks. His longer term indoor hardcourt stats don’t leap off the page either, and I am a little wary of his overperformance on break point conversion in a handful of matches last week as well. Maintaining that level, one that is far above his norm, is something I am happy to oppose.
First serve percentage for Huesler is important, and only getting 40% into play against Rinderknech last week was always going to make things tough for him. It was a bit of a perfect storm against Huesler, who underperformed in three key areas: first serve percentage, break point saves and break point conversion. Nevertheless, when you look at the body of work Huesler was able to generate on the indoor hardcourt in the latter part of 2020 and then last week with some unfavourable stats, I am comfortable in my assessment of him being a clear favourite in this match-up.
I am happy to place a 2.5 unit selection on Huesler to progress.
Suggested Bet
2.5 units Huesler to defeat Bonzi at $1.82 at Unibet ($1.85 at Topsport, $1.83 at Bet365 and $1.86+ at some local Australian books).
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