Plenty of one-sided match-ups on Wednesday's schedule
Of today's 12 matches, a lot look like theoretical mismatches with well over half of the clashes on the schedule featuring favourites priced around 1.3030/100 or below - so the market anticipates a lot of one-way traffic on day three in Paris.
Due to this, I want to focus on some of the match-ups which feature players closer to even money apiece, and look much more competitive.
Rune surely fatigued ahead of Hurkacz clash
One match which looks fascinating features Hubert Hurkacz and Holger Rune, with Hurkacz still pushing for ATP Finals qualification, and Rune on the back of an epic run where he has gone 14-2 in his last four tournaments.
As I mentioned in yesterday's column, overplaying could well be the big issue for the Dane here, with two consecutive finals in preceding weeks and he didn't look his best against Stan Wawrinka yesterday evening, with the Swiss veteran missing his chances on return to break, spurning three match points, two in set two and one in set three.
With this in mind, it's probably not a huge shock to see the market more pro-Hurkacz (he's the 1.684/6 favourite) than might usually be the case. Rune has got better numbers indoors over the last 12 months, but I do think this is a situational match-up where subjective factors do over-ride basic data.
Shapovalov another player who could be fatigued
The market is finding it tough to split Pablo Carreno-Busta and Denis Shapovalov, with the Canadian, Shapovalov, the very slight 1.875/6 favourite to make round three. Shapovalov is another one who reached a final last week, losing to Daniil Medvedev in the final, and he rather stumbled past Francisco Cerundolo in round one, dropping the opener to the clay-courter and only winning 52% of points in the match.
Stats-wise, the duo are very similar over the last year indoors, so this looks a very evenly-matched encounter, and I wouldn't be shocked if Carreno-Busta took this with Shapovalov potentially fatigued.
Draper can double up against Tiafoe
Yesterday's recommendation, Jack Draper, got the job done in straightforward fashion against Arthur Rinderknech and today, the Brit faces Frances Tiafoe in what is a step up in opposition quality. However, Draper has taken sets off Carlos Alcaraz and Hubert Hurkacz in recent weeks and looks very well equipped to give Tiafoe a big test here.
Despite Tiafoe winning around two thirds of his matches indoors over the last 12 months, he's running at below 100% combined service/return points won over that sample, and Draper's Challenger data translates to well above that level. It should be a very competitive match, but I do like Draper's chances at the current 1.9520/21.