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Alcaraz still leads the outright market
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Norrie underdog to continue British interest
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Fognini's tournament value to continue
Men's outrights getting clearer after Sinner loss
Following Sinner's loss, and the earlier exit for Daniil Medvedev, the men's outright market is starting to clearly form as the second tier of players now becomes a solitary player, with Holger Rune 9.89/1 the clear third favourite behind market leaders Carlos Alcaraz 2.6613/8 and Novak Djokovic 9.617/2.
Alexander Zverev 18.535/2 is the fourth favourite, and that's a price I can't entertain about the German at all, who looks a fair distance away from his pre-injury best even considering his easy win over Alex Molcan.
Alcaraz and Djokovic are both in action on Friday, with the quality of opposition ramping up slightly. Alcaraz faces Denis Shapovalov, while Djokovic is up against the enigmatic Spaniard, Alejandro Davidovich Fokina. Both are priced as overwhelming favourites to continue their progress, as is Stefanos Tsitsipas who is similarly priced against the declining Diego Schwartzman.
It's tough to challenge those lines really, and with all but two pre-match favorites priced south of 1.402/5 on Friday, there's just several matches which look likely to be competitive.
Musetti with market support for Norrie clash
The first is Lorenzo Musetti against the final Brit in the field, Cam Norrie, and it's Musetti who the market expects to progress, as the 1.574/7 favourite. A couple of months back, after Norrie beat Alcaraz to win a clay court title, the prices would have been much different and the duo met six weeks ago in Barcelona, when Norrie was the marginal favourite at 1.9210/11.
So, there's a huge difference in price from that recent match, probably as a reaction to that result plus some uninspiring tennis so far from Norrie in this event, and in a loss to Francisco Cerundolo last week in Lyon.
Clay data this season suggests the two players should be around even money apiece, making the price on Musetti short, although you can understand why he has market support. A tough one in terms of whether to agree with the market sentiment.
Fognini with data edge over Ofner
The other competitive-looking clash is Fabio Fognini against the qualifier, Sebastian Ofner. We know that the inconsistent Fognini is coming towards the end of his career but he's still capable of decent performances, evidenced by some solid wins of late in Rome and beating Felix Auger-Aliassime here.
Ofner has also impressed, with a win over Sebastian Korda in the last round overturning the odds, but despite an excellent record on clay on the Challenger Tour this season, his data at that level, which is good but not great, hasn't quite been in line with his results.
You never quite know what you're going to get with Fognini but he seems to be focused right now and his numbers this year are still better than Ofner's career data on the surface - there's a reason why the Austrian has never broken the top 100.
I'm pretty surprised Fognini is as big as 1.774/5, which I think represents value despite his level declining and his general inconsistency.