Seeded players fall on day two
Several heavy favourites were ousted in their opening round two match yesterday after receiving first round byes, with Stefanos Tsitsipas and Matteo Berrettini losing in three sets against Ugo Humbert and Marcos Giron, respectively.
With David Goffin also losing against Norbert Gombos, all three top eight seeds with byes in action yesterday ended up being defeated, while our underdog pick, Jan Lennard Struff, struggling on return in his loss to Pablo Carreno-Busta.
Bonzi capable of competing for Davidovich Fokina clash
As has been the case throughout the week, action begins at 1000 UK time and in one of the opening batch of matches, I'm interested in Benjamin Bonzi's price at 5.309/2 against Alejandro Davidovich Fokina.
The wild card, Bonzi, got his first main tour win indoors with a straightforward victory over clay-courter Federico Coria in the opening round, and actually his record on hard courts in the last year or so isn't bad at all. He made the semi-final in the Istanbul Challenger recently, and the final in the Bengaluru Challenger just before the tour stopped.
Opponent Davidovich Fokina got past the out of form Karen Khachanov in the opening round after qualifying, and is starting to make some decent progress on the main tour now, recently performing pretty well in the two tournaments in Cologne in October. However, those events were played in pretty slow indoor conditions, which should suit Davidovich Fokina a little more given his strong track record on clay - the conditions in Paris should be a fair bit quicker.
Although both players don't have the biggest sample on hard/indoor hard courts this year - understandably given the large chunk of the tour missed - the 2020 numbers suggest this should be closer than the market anticipates. The Sportsbook is generously offering even money - a market-leading price - on Bonzi with a 4.5 game head start and this looks a decent spot to me. I'd be surprised if that line existed at the start of the match.
Thompson also looking undervalued against Coric
Another underdog who looks a little undervalued by the market is Jordan Thompson for his match with Borna Coric.
The market now seems to think Coric is finally reaching his top 10 potential going by his recent pricing and while it may well be that he is now starting to realise that huge potential displayed a number of years ago, there seems to be a short memory of his recent poor record on clay - losing to Stefano Travaglia in Rome and Norbert Gombos at the French Open - after the tour resumed.
Thompson is a competent player on hard courts, beating Cameron Norrie last week in Nur-Sultan, and had an easy win over the clay-courter, Federico Delbonis, in round one. For some further context, Thompson was priced around the 2.809/5 mark against Coric in the US Open at the start of September. However, today, you can get a much bigger 6.806/1 about the Australian man, and this looks out of line, in my opinion.
Nadal and Rublev among heavy favourites on day three
In other matches, Rafa Nadal gets his tournament started with a clash against countryman Feliciano Lopez, and while the relatively pacy indoor conditions are likely to favour Lopez, Nadal still looks justified as the heavy favourite here at 1.091/11. Similarly priced is Andrey Rublev, who looks to have a considerable ability differential over Radu Albot.
This duo are among a number of heavy favourites, who also include Milos Raonic who is 1.171/6 for his match against the home player, Pierre-Hugues Herbert. Again, this market looks broadly justified and with the exceptions detailed above, it's difficult to see the heavy favourites prices looking particularly incorrect today.
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