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Alcaraz wins Indian Wells without dropping a set
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Spaniard now strong market favourite to win Miami
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Medvedev a major threat to that achievement
Outright market shifting assessment following Indian Wells
Coming into Indian Wells with fitness concerns, Carlos Alcaraz ploughed through the field without dropping a set, which was a great achievement considering his final three opponents - Medvedev, Sinner and Auger-Aliaasime - are high level competitors. Interestingly, the accumulative odds from his individual match pricing was around the 10.009/1 mark, suggesting that the outright price on the Spaniard actually was pretty mediocre value, particularly after his in-running price quickly shortened markedly following the early rounds.
There has been a clear mentality shift from the outright market ahead of ATP Miami, with the defending champion now trading at 2.942/1 and a clear favourite, ahead of Daniil Medvedev 4.904/1 who was the pre-event favourite in California.
Conditions likely to be less slow than in California
Medvedev was unable to hide his distaste of the slow conditions on offer there, and while Miami is unlikely to play particularly quickly for a hard court, he should get some respite from those ultra-slow conditions. Historical data suggests that Miami is likely to play slightly on the slow side of medium - and we've seen some more serve-oriented players have success here, such as Roger Federer (four time winner), John Isner (2018 winner and 2019 runner-up) and Hubert Hurkacz (2021 winner)
With this in mind, the market may have over-reacted slightly to Alcaraz winning in Indian Wells, which offered conditions which he would probably want to take around the world with him. A non-disastrous top quarter, featuring Taylor Fritz and Holger Rune as the main threats, probably has a slight impact as well.
Important to remember Medvedev's hard-court quality
As for Medvedev, he's going to need to get past the likes of Alex De Minaur and Cameron Norrie in order to get through his quarter, and having Stefanos Tsitsipas in his half of the draw isn't necessarily a bad thing either.
With quarter two very competitive indeed - Casper Ruud, Alexander Zverev, Jannik Sinner plus Andrey Rublev will all fancy their chances of progress - it looks like another straight shootout between Alcaraz and Medvedev seeming fairly likely.
After the last couple of weeks in California where he hated conditions, it's worth reinforcing that Medvedev is a superb hard courter away from those ultra-slow courts. Over the last year on hard courts, he's running at almost 110% combined service/return points won, with that mark the level of an elite player. Given the shift in market pricing from the last event, Medvedev looks the pick to get revenge over Alcaraz here.