ATP Florence Tips: Fan's favourite Maestrelli may cause problems for Wolf

The ATP Tour moves back to Europe for the remainder of the season and this week there are two new ATP 250 tournaments in Spain and Italy.

The Gijon Open is a brand-new tournament, while Florence is back on the calendar for the first time since 1994 with the UniCredit Firenze Open.

In the old days, Florence was part of the clay swing, but now it's back as cover for the missing tournaments in China and Russia and will be played on a single-year license on indoor hard.

As with any indoor hard court event where the courts are re-laid every year the conditions are a little bit unknown and never more so than this week where there's scant prior information to help us.

We know that both tournaments are being played on Greenset indoor surfaces and if we're going on the stats from qualies, which isn't an exact science by any means, it appears that Gijon is the slower of the two tournaments.

Indeed, there have only been 73% service holds and 68% first serve points won, which, if repeated in the main draw, would make it very slow indeed, but a lot of clay courters were in that qualie draw.

Florence's data from qualies shows 80% holds and 72% first serve points won, which would make it about average for an indoor hard court event.

There are five round one matches on the schedule for Monday in Florence and quite honestly it's not the most appealing set of matches today at either venue.

Aslan Karatsev has been in wretched form lately and appeared to be injured last week in Astana, but I'm not backing Tallon Griekspoor at a price like 1.625/8 to win the match.

Indeed, there's a case to be made that Karatsev is value today, as he was priced up as a 1.705/7 favourite on indoor hard back in February in Rotterdam when Griekspoor edged it in a final set tie break.

Wild card Maestrelli to get a lot of support

A couple of Italian wild cards are in action on Monday and while Giulio Zeppieri is much more at home on the clay, Francesco Maestrelli showed a few weeks ago at the Cassis Challenger that he can play on hard as well.

Maestrelli beat Tel Aviv semi finalist Constant Lestienne and Britain's Ryan Peniston in Cassis before losing to eventual champion Hugo Grenier in the semis, so he's capable of a decent level on hard.

Perhaps the home support will inspire Maestrelli in his first main level match, given that he's from Pisa, which is only just over an hour away from Florence, which should mean he'll have plenty of friends and family in attendance.

Indeed, Maestrelli has shown his ability to perform in front of home crowds already in his career, when he won the Verona Challenger on the clay this July, beating number one seed Pedro Cachin in the final.

Wolf has been playing on indoor hard the last few weeks and made the quarters of the Mouilleron Le Captif Challenger last week and he should win this match, but not without a scrap and the 2-1 to Wolf appeals at 3.814/5 for half a point.

Value hard to find in Gijon

In Gijon, they start with Benjamin Bonzi versus Thiago Monteiro and Bonzi's won 13 of his last 15 matches against left-handers, so he really should be winning that one on a hard court.

Constant Lestienne has belatedly found his form on the main tour in recent weeks, having first played at tour level back in 2015.

He lost six of the seven matches he played at main level between 2015 and 2021 and now he's won five of his last seven - all played within the last month.

The 30-year-old Frenchman is something of a late developer at this level, seemingly, and having made the semis in Tel Aviv indoors a couple of weeks ago he's now favourite to beat Sebastian Baez in Gijon.

Baez hasn't won a match since losing the Bastad final to compatriot Francisco Cerundolo back in July, but if it is slow in Gijon he might be able to get the better of Lestienne, but it's hard to have much faith in Baez on indoor hard.

US Open Junior champ Martin Landaluce has got a wild card this week and at just 16-years-old you'd expect Tommy Paul to beat him and also Arthur Rinderknech should to too strong for lucky loser Carlos Taberner on a hard court.

I wouldn't be surprised if Joao Sousa made Dominic Thiem work hard for a while, but I don't fancy backing any of the dogs in Gijon today.

And in Safer Gambling Week here in the UK it's a good time to remind ourselves that if you don't really fancy something or the odds aren't offering value then it's not worth having a bet and that's mainly the case on Monday for me.