ATP Florence Tips: Set one tie break good value in Cressy vs Wolf

I kicked off yesterday's preview by questioning the analysis of Roberto Carballes Baena on the court speed in Florence and I still think he was wrong, which was backed up by Alexander Bublik's assessment on Tuesday.

"The court is quite fast," said Bublik.

And there we have it. Two players on the same court, one day apart, with a totally different view on the court speed.

I still think it's got reasonable pace in it for the attacking players, but there hasn't been a tie break so far in the main draw after 10 matches.

Much of that is due to there being plenty of clay courters in the field and if we look at Bublik, he fired down 20 aces in two sets and won 81% of his first serve points, so the likes of Bublik and Matteo Berrettini should enjoy the conditions.

And you'd think that on a reasonably paced surface Maxime Cressy would tend to go well, but he's actually lost five of his last six matches on indoor hard at all levels - and he was favourite in four of those six matches.

It won't come as much of a surprise to anyone to learn that Cressy has played at least one tie break in six of his last seven matches at all levels on indoor hard and set one has gone to a breaker five times in those seven matches.

Cressy's return game is so limited that he's only broken serve 8% of the time (in admittedly only six matches) at main level indoors, winning only 27.6% of return points.

His opponent, Jeff Wolf's played one match here already this week, which should be a decent advantage (although Cressy did play doubles on Tuesday) and if nicks a break it's hard to see Cressy winning the set, so I don't mind either the set one to Wolf at slight odds against or set one tie break at a tempting 3.7511/4.

I was expecting the price on a set one breaker to be shorter than 3.7511/4 with Cressy involved on a slick surface, so I'm happy to take over 12.5 games in set one at that price.

The last round one match in Florence is between Mackenzie McDonald and Jenson Brooksby, who've have met twice within the last few months and the stats are overwhelmingly in Brooksby's favour, but there's a caveat.

McDonald has won only 60% of his service points and held just 70% of the time against his fellow American, while Brooksby has held 87% of the time, winning 68% of his service points and 40% on return.

However, Brooksby has been lethal on converting his chances in this match-up, taking 70% of his break points and saving 73% of those against him, so there could be a chance for McDonald to turn this around.

It's actually McDonald that's created the more break point chances per game, but he's been dismal on the big points and that's by and large what's cost him dear.

McDonald's weak record on indoor hard (one quarter final in 12 main level tournaments) isn't inspiring either, but at this stage of the season he might be playing Brooksby at a good time.

Mikael Ymer impressed on Tuesday against Tim Van Rijthoven, who had a shocker of a day, but I'm not sure that the Dutchman was fully fit, and it'll be interesting to see how Ymer gets on against Aslan Karatsev.

Karatsev looked decent against Tallon Griekspoor, who ended up retiring in set two of that match and in conditions that should help the powerful Russian he might spring a surprise in what will be his third career meeting with Ymer.

Ymer's edged both previous meetings in deciding sets and both the stats of those two matches shows that each player has struggled to hold serve.

Both have held just 66% of the time and returns have been dominant, with Ymer winning 45% of return points and Karatsev 42%, which is very big considering one match was in quick conditions in Washington DC and the other on indoor hard back in 2018.

Karatsev went into that DC match in August of this year priced up as a 1.548/15 favourite, but he struggled in the heat of what was a boiling hot week and Ymer ended up winning it despite scoring the same number of points.

On paper it looks like a match-up that Karatsev has the potential to dominate, but he's been so inconsistent lately that I'm not sure I can trust him even at a tempting price of 2.56/4.

Finally, I'd epxect the strong serving of Alexander Bublik and Matteo Berrettini to overcome Corentin Moutet and Roberto Carballes Baena in these conditions, so at this tricky stage of the season I'm being quite circumspect with the number of bets I have and it'll just be one half point wager on Wednesday at what I feel is a value price.