Indian Wells Masters Day 5 Tips: Zverev vulnerable against Ruusuvuori

Dan Weston
12 March 2023
3:00 min read

German Tennis Player Alexander Zverevman Tennis Player Angelique Kerber

Alexander Zverev is still waiting for his first top-50 win after injury...

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The Indian Wells Masters continues on Sunday with the third round getting underway tonight. Dan Weston returns to preview the ATP action...

Medvedev a huge favourite to make round four
Ruusuvuori a potential test for Zverev
Market understands that conditions help clay-courters

Alcaraz among Saturday winners

Matches tonight in California get started at the slightly earlier time of 1800 UK time tonight, and there's eight matches on the schedule as Saturday's round two winners continue their tournament. Last night, we saw victories for some of the main contenders for the event, including Carlos Alcaraz, Holger Rune and Jannik Sinner, while Andy Murray was also among the winners to set up a third-round all-British clash with Jack Draper tomorrow evening.

Alcaraz is now into 5.04/1 for the title after that win over Thanasi Kokkinakis, with Daniil Medvedev 2.962/1 still out there as the solid market favourite, and Sinner into 9.08/1 third favourite for the title.

Medvedev expected to ease past Ivashka

Medvedev is among the 16 players taking to the court tonight in an attempt to make it to round four, with the tournament favourite facing Ilya Ivashka in one of the later matches on the schedule, taking place in the early hours of the morning in the UK. Medvedev is an overwhelming 1.041/25 pre-match favourite to progress.

As with yesterday, there's a number of strong market favourites today with Casper Ruud, Andrey Rublev, Cameron Norrie and Frances Tiafoe all around the 1.251/4 to 1.3030/100 mark at the time of writing, and all of the quartet look difficult to oppose at these prices.

Zverev still with plenty to prove after injury

However, slightly bigger-priced is Alexander Zverev at 1.384/11, and the German could face a tricky time of things against Emil Ruusuvuori. I mentioned a few days ago that I had high hopes for the young Finn, Ruusuvuori, when he broke through from the Challenger Tour but he has flattered to deceive mostly in his ATP career over the last couple of years.

A decent win over Roberto Bautista-Agut in round two has got Ruusuvuori to this stage, and it will be interesting to see how he can test Zverev here.

Zverev missed eight months of ATP Tour action following the French Open and his record since recovering from injury has been pretty mixed. He's certainly underwhelmed market expectations, losing five matches as favourite, and while he reached the semi-final in Dubai several weeks ago, it's worth noting that he didn't beat a single player ranked inside the top 50 to get to that stage, and he still hasn't beaten a top 50 player this season.

Ruusuvuori should be an upgrade to most of the opposition Zverev has faced so far and I'm looking forward to seeing how he fares against the German tonight.

Khachanov and Thompson slight favourites over clay-courters

In the matches featuring players who are theoretically more evenly matched, I thought Karen Khachanov at first glance would be some value at 1.768/11 against Alejandro Davidovich Fokina, but my model made him a justified favourite although not any value at market prices.

This was also the case for Jordan Thompson at 1.768/11 for his meeting with Alejandro Tabilo.

After beating Stefanos Tsitsipas in round two here, Thompson is now seven unbeaten after ploughing through an easy draw in a Challenger event several weeks ago (the highest ranked opponent he faced was 258) and on a quicker hard court this price might be some value.

However, we know all about slow conditions here and how they often help clay-courters, so Tabilo shouldn't be ruled out against the Australian tonight.

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