Nadal shocked by Rublev in three sets
The big news from yesterday was Rafa Nadal - the King of Clay no less - losing to Andrey Rublev in three sets. The Russian was a set and *4-3 up in set two before Nadal fought back to take the second and the fightback looked on at that point. However, a double-break final set in favour of Rublev saw him progress and cause a real shock.
With Djokovic and Nadal out, can we start to believe that the new generation are capable of challenging the elite duo in Masters and Grand Slams? I certainly hope so - it's fantastic to see a very competitive top end of the ATP Tour and I think it's good for tennis that more than several players have a realistic chance of lifting major trophies.
Evans unlikely to continue stunning progress
The outright market is a little split between Rublev and Stefanos Tsitsipas, who has very marginal tournament favourite status at 2.285/4. Rublev is back at 2.568/5, with Casper Ruud at 9.008/1 and Dan Evans the outsider at 17.0016/1. Evans, who stunned Novak Djokovic in round three and backed that up yesterday with another underdog win over David Goffin, has been matched as high as 500.00499/1 on the Exchange - this adequately demonstrates how much of a surprise it is to see the Brit in a semi-final of a Masters 1000 on slow clay.
Evans faces Tsitsipas in the opening match today, and given the disparity in outright pricing it's hardly a surprise to see Tsitsipas as the 1.201/5 strong favourite to progress to tomorrow's final. In the last 12 months on clay, Tsitsipas is running at almost 107% combined service/return points won on the surface, far in excess of what Evans can boast.
In fact, Evans had barely won a main tour match on clay until this week so his presence here is certainly unexpected. My model has Tsitsipas at 1.292/7, which makes his market price slightly short, but not unduly so.
Rublev favourite to defeat Ruud
Following this, the second semi-final takes place between Andrey Rublev and Casper Ruud, two next-gen players with huge future upside. Rublev, at a year older, is slightly further along the upward curve and possesses more all-court ability at this stage, but Ruud is an excellent clay-courter already at 22 years of age - across the last two years he's won more than 70% of main tour clay matches.
Rublev is the market favourite at 1.364/11 and I think that's broadly correct. He has better clay data - and all-surface data - although it's fair to point out that Ruud has better tournament numbers so far this week here in Monte Carlo, albeit against a slightly lower calibre of opposition.
If there's to be an upset today - which I'm not particularly anticipating - then I think it will be in this second match, with Ruud at least having strong clay pedigree and surface upside. Having said that, I'm expecting a Tsitsipas versus Rublev final tomorrow which should be a fascinating encounter - at this stage, I'd have Rublev as a slight favourite in that potential match-up.
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