Olympics Tennis Day Two Tip: 6/5 Hungarian value to upset home party

• Humbert awful Roland Garros record

• Marozsan highly capable

• Side with natural clay courter at 6/52.20

If you were to ask Ugo Humbert which Parisian venue Olympic tournament organisers should select to host the tennis event, his honest answer would be at the indoor hard court venue they use for the masters event at Bercy.

The Frenchman is at his best under a roof and with a fast court that befits his no-nonsense aggressive game. Of course, once Paris was announced as the Olympic host city the tennis was only ever going to be hosted on the iconic clay courts of Roland Garros.

Unfortunately for France's top ranked men's player he has never enjoyed his seasonal visits to his home Slam, having won only one match across his seven appearances. And that was against countryman Adrian Mannarino who loathes clay even more than he does.

Poor record

It is a particularly poor record when you consider that in all but two of his eight matches he has been the market favourite.

His defeats include a sub 1.21/5 defeat to Marc Polmans in 2020 and defeats at the 1.51/2 or lower range to Ricardas Berankis in 2021 and this year to Lorenzo Sonego.

Humbert has shown that he is a horse for a particular course. He relishes faster conditions where his combination of powerful hitting and his swinging lefty strokes. On clay the rallies typically last longer than he is comfortable with, and he has never really got his head around how to adapt to the surface.

This clay season got off to a promising start with a quarter-final finish in Monte Carlo, but he was coming in hot after a strong early season hard court campaign that included a title on the fast track in Dubai.

Since that week in Monaco Humbert won only one of his next seven clay court outings, including a defeat last week to 155th ranked qualifier Gustavo Heide on the big server friendly altitude courts of Gstaad.

Not only does he not enjoy clay at the best of times, but many French players have gone on the record over the years to suggest how uncomfortable they find the pressure of playing at their home Slam. Adding the factor of a home Olympics is hardly going to alleviate that pressure.

Strong backhand

Humbert's first round opponent can play on clay. Last season Marozsan impressively claimed the scalp of Carlos Alcaraz in Rome, and he did so with confidence and class. It was an earned win and not a significant underperformance from the phenomenal Spaniard.

Marozsan is at his happiest on a clay court, with his emergence into the top 100 of the rankings in 2023 gained through grinding away on the journeyman Challenger circuit.

He's now comfortably ranked within the top 70 and able to play routinely on the ATP tour, where he tends to be competitive.

He is coming into Paris in reasonable form with a decent showing in Umag where he defeated Alexander Shevchenko - a player that had beaten him twice previously on clay this season, and a clay court specialist in Thiago Monteiro before falling to top five player Andrey Rublev.

I watched the match versus Rublev and I was very impressed by Marozsan's level in the first set.

He was outplaying the top seeded Russian with his explosive backhand doing the business. Marozsan went on to lose the match but Rublev moved up the gears in the remainder of the contest, and the drop in Marozsan's effort over the final two sets suggested to me that the Hungarian had one eye on the Olympics.

Marozsan has an adaptable game. He is equally comfortable trading groundstrokes or mixing up his game with varied touches and slices, ideal for disrupting a hitter like Humbert who sees ball, smacks ball.

In particular the Marozsan backhand could prove key. The one key advantage a left hander like Humbert has is to swing the ball to stretch that wing. Marozsan has shown that does not disturb him, winning five of his last six clay court matches on a clay court against lefties, including a dominant win over Monteiro this week.

Marozsan has the tools and form to win this one and 6/52.20 is appealing.

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