Bonzi gives us a handicap winner
Wednesday's matches went largely towards the favourites with only Borna Coric's loss to Jordan Thompson being a shock - and one we discussed in yesterday's preview as a potential upset. We also liked Benjamin Bonzi on the handicap - he was a heavy underdog - for his clash with Alejandro Davidovich Fokina and while the home wild card didn't manage to cause an upset, he kept it competitive enough to cover the +4.5 game handicap to give us a welcome Wednesday winner.
This brings us to the third round stage, with all eight matches in the round taking place today and action getting underway at 1000 UK time. The markets look pretty accurate across most of the matches on the schedule, but I think there is one exception to that assessment, which I'll discuss here.
Humbert potentially overvalued by the market
Marin Cilic is 2.608/5 to get the better of Ugo Humbert, and I think this is pretty generous. I have the match at around even money apiece, and I think this discrepancy is largely due to Humbert's strong indoor record in the last 12 months (9-4) on the main tour and his recent win in Antwerp, plus defeating Stefanos Tsitsipas in the previous round.
However, Humbert's underlying data from those matches (102% combined service/return points won) isn't aligned to such a winrate and assuming he carries on at that level, this high win percentage would be very likely to mean-revert downwards eventually. In addition, in Antwerp, he was only really an underdog in one match - versus Alex De Minaur in the final - and it's worth noting as well that the Frenchman has won both his matches here via a final set tiebreak.
Cilic with caveats to unimpressive record following resumption of tour
Cilic should be pretty fresh here after second round opponent Corentin Moutet withdrew before their match, and he had a good win over Felix Auger-Aliassime in the opening round himself. Cilic struggled in both tournaments in Cologne in his only prior indoor events since the tour resumed, but there should be an asterisk applied to those events, with the courts there playing pretty slow - unlikely to suit the rather serve-orientated Cilic.
The Croatian, Cilic, is 6-6 since the tour resumed which looks unimpressive but look at who he's lost to away from those two losses in Cologne - Dominic Thiem twice in Grand Slams, the rapidly improving Casper Ruud (who was on his favoured clay) in Rome and Denis Shapovalov in Cincinnati - all as an underdog.
Given these considerations, I think Cilic is undervalued by the market here and represents some value to progress at odds-against.
Nadal among heavy favourites to progress
All other matches look broadly accurately priced, and many feature heavy favourites. These heavy favourites include Milos Raonic, Rafa Nadal, Alexander Zverev and Andrey Rublev who are all around 1.201/5 or shorter for their matches, and it would be a surprise if any didn't get the job done today.
De Minaur versus Medvedev the match of the day
Alex De Minaur's clash with Daniil Medvedev - two players of extremely high potential, not to mention current ability - looks the best clash worth following if you're a neutral and want to see a competitive clash, with the Russian, Medvedev, justifyingly edging the pre-match market at a current 1.674/6.
I'm also interested in seeing how Alejandro Davidovich Fokina, a Spaniard who is another player of high potential, fares against Diego Schwartzman in a match which on paper looks the most likely to be a very return-orientated clash with breaks of serve. This should be a fascinating encounter and my model has projected serve percentages below 70% for both players.
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