Miami Masters Day Three Tips: Nakashima can get revenge for Adelaide loss to Davidovich Fokina

Dan Weston
24 March 2023
3:00 min read

Spanish Tennis Player Roberto Bautista-Agut

Roberto Bautista-Agut again meets Emil Ruusuvuori...

Join

View market

Twitter

Facebook

View the Betslip

The Miami Masters continues on Friday, with 16 second round matches as that round gets underway. Returning to give his thoughts is Dan Weston...

Variance strikes on day two
Nakashima price much bigger than two months ago
Bautista-Agut again meets Ruusuvuori

Big names get their tournaments underway today

We were pretty unfortunate with our pick yesterday with Marcos Giron losing to Christian Garin in three sets despite winning more points in the match - again showing the variance involved on a regular basis.

Dominic Thiem yet again struggled, losing straight-sets again, this time to Lorenzo Sonego - the Austrian is now 4-19 in sets in 2023, and his more detailed data suggests that's not a particularly unfair assessment of where his level has been in 2023.

As round two begins today, players with a first-round bye start their tournaments, and in action today among others are Carlos Alcaraz, Taylor Fritz, Holger Rune, Alexander Zverev, Jannik Sinner and Andrey Rublev.

All except Rune are strong favourites priced around 1.3030/100 or below, although I continue to believe Zverev has plenty to prove still in terms of his current level following his long injury lay-off.

Big discrepancy in Nakashima pricing

A hunt for more competitive-looking round two matches today yielded a few clashes to assess though, and to start with, I'm going to look at Alejandro Davidovich Fokina versus Brandon Nakashima.

The Spaniard won their only previous clash, on hard court in Adelaide in January, in straight sets but that day Nakashima started as a 1.51/2 favourite - today he is the 2.3811/8 underdog in a real change of pricing in a match with features two players with rather contrasting styles.

It's the serve of Nakashima versus the return game of Davidovich Fokina here.

I expected more of Nakashima this year after breaking into the top 50 and winning the Next Gen Finals in November, and it is tricky to ignore that marked difference in pre-match pricing between today and the previous meeting between the duo several months ago.

Back Brandon Nakashima to win @

2.38

Ruusuvuori picking up market support

Moving on, Roberto Bautista-Agut faces Emil Ruusuvuori in a repeat of their round two clash several weeks ago at Indian Wells. That day, Ruusuvuori won in straight-sets as a pre-match underdog at around 2.47/5, which was rather surprising given the slow conditions in California, and has received market support today, trading at a current 1.834/5.

Bautista-Agut has better hard court numbers over the last year, with a small edge on both serve or return, and the duo are pretty evenly matched this year across all surfaces. If the market price on the Spaniard was, say, 2.255/4 or greater, I think he'd look like value here.

Finally, the market is finding it difficult to split Miomir Kecmanović and Ugo Humbert ahead of their clash in what is pretty much even money apiece.

Year-long hard court data pretty much makes this in line, although I can't help thinking Kecmanovic should have the edge here with Humbert having a pretty miserable time on the main tour in the last year or so, but picking up plenty of wins in Challengers.

Bet £5 on tennis accas on the French Open, min odds of 1.5. After the qualifying bet(s) have settled, you'll get a £5 free bet. Available on days 1-7 of the French Open. T&Cs apply.