ATP Kitzbuhel Tips: Taberner a value price to beat Varillas

Sean Calvert
24 July 2022

There's over 700m of altitude at the Generali Open in Kitzbuhel

Join

View market

Twitter

Facebook

View the Betslip

The ATP Tour reaches Kitzbuhel, Umag and Atlanta this week and Sean Calvert is back with his value bets on day one...

"This one has more than a whiff of recency bias about it, with Varillas being priced up very short on the back of a good week in Gstaad..."

It's a busy week on the ATP Tour, with three ATP 250 events scheduled in Kitzbuhel, Umag and Atlanta.

They play at around 762m of altitude on the clay at the Generali Open in Kitzbuhel and over the years this tournament has produced a good amount of underdog winners.

It's the second-best tournament of the year in that regard, with an average of 43% underdog winners in the last nine years and if you'd backed each underdog in Kitzbuhel in the last five editions you'd be almost £500 in profit to a £10 stake.

A fair chunk of that profit is down to Carlos Alcaraz losing to 12.9 chance Alexander Erler in the first round, but on average round one produces 41% underdog winners (last nine editions).

With the altitude involved, Kitzbuhel usually plays quick (77% holds and 38% tie break matches) but it's forecast to be very stormy and with quite a bit of rain around, so it may play slower this year.

At the Croatia Open Umag, where they play at sea level on the red clay, it's usually pretty slow (73% average holds and 29% tie break matches) and they tend to schedule the matches in the late afternoon/evening to avoid the hottest part of the day.

It's set to be hot again all week at around 32c in the shade in Umag and usually plenty of underdogs win here: 39% on average in the last eight editions, placing it seventh in the list of 'most underdog winners'.

Round one has averaged 38% underdog winners in the last eight editions and if you'd backed every underdog in all rounds in the last six editions, you'd be in profit by £340 to a £10 stake.

It's proven far less profitable to back underdogs at the Atlanta Open, where it's forecast to be hot and humid again at the Atlantic Station this week (32C in the shade) and with frequent thunderstorms likely.

Atlanta has averaged 83% service holds in the last five editions (a huge 90% holds last year) and 47% tie break matches (85% in 2021) and some of that is down to the type of players who go well here (Isner, Opelka, Kyrgios etc).

It's only produced 31% underdog winners on average (last eight editions) and you'd be £187 down if you'd backed every Atlanta underdog in the last six editions.

So, I'll be looking at Kitzbuhel and Umag this week unless something jumps off the page at me in Atlanta.

There was a sizeable kick in the teeth for the tournament director in Kitzbuhel on Sunday when both the number one seed (Casper Ruud) and the second seed (Matteo Berrettini) withdrew having contested the Gstaad final.

That leaves Kitzbuhel rather short on star quality and Monday's card there has a bit of a Challenger level feel to it now.

The one bet I will take on Monday is to take Carlos Taberner at a tasty 3.3512/5 to beat Juan Pablo Varillas.

Juan Pablo Varillas RG 2022.jpg

This one has more than a whiff of recency bias about it, with Varillas being priced up very short on the back of a good week in Gstaad where he made the quarter finals as a qualifier.

He had more than a little good fortune though, with Lorenzo Sonego having an absolute shocker and the win over Roberto Bautista Agut was a smash and grab raid after the match was delayed at 7-6, 5-6 due to rain.

Varillas came back the next day and hit a few winners to win the match that caught RBA cold and it seems to me that this price on the Peruvian is much too short and based on that Gstaad run and Taberner's weak form recently.

Indeed, the last time that this pair met was also at slight altitude (415m) in Cordoba in 2020 and Taberner won when Varillas retired at 6-3, 4-2 down and Taberner was the 1.768/11 favourite that day.

There's nothing in the 12-month main level clay data that suggests that Varillas should be this short

He was a 1.292/7 chance when he beat Varillas back in 2018 and while those matches were a while ago there's nothing in the 12-month main level clay data that suggests that Varillas should be this short.

Indeed, it's Taberner that leads the way in terms of combined service points/return points won on 98 (Varillas 97) and in service hold/break totals it's Taberner on 100 and Varillas on 93.

So, the layers are just going with Varillas' form of last week and I'm happy to take Taberner at these odds.

In Umag, their opening day is pretty low key as well, with not much to get excited about in the prices that I've seen so far, with a few yet to be priced, so I'll just take one bet on Monday.