ATP Majorca Tips: Veteran Lopez to test weak-returning Griekspoor

I'm pleased to say that I'm here at the Mallorca Open this week for the second edition of this tournament and it's a really good field for a 250, with the likes of Daniil Medvedev, Stefanos Tsitsipas and Nick Kyrgios all set to play.

There's only one year's stats to go on for Mallorca, but over in Eastbourne at the Rothesay International there's plenty of data to look at.

In the last six editions an average of 35% of the betting underdogs have won and round one alone has averaged 36% underdog winners.

It's had quite a low service hold percentage in recent times (80% on average in the last four editions) and I'm assuming much of that is due to the similarity of the grass to Wimbledon, where it's on the slower side these days.

As I'm here in Majorca, I'll focus mainly on events here this week and Monday's play features five round one matches.

Feliciano Lopez is at the very end of his career now at the age of 40 (41 in September) but he made the quarter finals here on home turf in Mallorca a year ago, beating Karen Khachanov and he'll be up for this week's tournament.

The stats tell us that Lopez's serve has dropped off now from a career hold of serve mark of 90% on grass to only holding 82% of the time in his last 10 main level matches on grass.

He faces Tallon Griekspoor on Monday, with the Dutchman the clear favourite against the veteran Spaniard, but Griekspoor is no better a returner so far on his surface than Lopez.

He's only played six main level grass court matches, but he's only broken serve 9% of the time in those matches, which is actually worse than the 12% breaks that Lopez has achieved in his last 10 main level matches on grass.

Indeed, the combined service points won/return points won totals of this pair on grass at main level lately are similar, with the edge going to Lopez.

Griekspoor's total is just 95, while Lopez is on 97 in his last 10 main level grass matches, so the Dutchman will need to do better on return than he's done so far on grass if he's to justify favouritism here.

Lopez can't really be trusted at his age to win the match, but over games or sets looks pretty likely here given the recent grass data of the pair.

I'm not keen on over 23.5 games as a line, but I'm happier with over 2.5 sets at 2.3811/8, with Lopez likely to put everything he has into this match.

Next, Emil Ruusuvuori must have been less than delighted to have drawn Ilya Ivashka in round one here, having lost to the Belarusian player no fewer than four times in the last 15 months.

Only 11 days ago in similar conditions (but not as warm) Ivashka beat Ruusuvuori in straight sets as a 1.804/5 chance and the career series stats make for grim reading for the Finn.

Ivashka has created a huge 1.25 break point chances per Ruusuvuori service game in those four matches and this is about as one-sided set of stats that you'll see between two players of a similar ranking.

Ruusuvuori has only held serve 49% of the time against Ivashka in those four matches (on clay, hard and grass) and broken 10% of the time, while his combined service points won/return points won total is just 85.

Ivashka has created a huge 1.25 break point chances per Ruusuvuori service game in those four matches and this is about as one-sided set of stats that you'll see between two players of a similar ranking.

Ruusuvuori did win four matches on grass at Queen's last week, but he only just sneaked past veteran Feli Lopez in a final set tie break and also went the distance with Quentin Halys.

Ivashka has been a little unlucky this grass swing to have drawn Daniil Medvedev a couple of times early on in tournaments, but he challenged the Russian both times, so his grass form is decent.

There isn't much to choose between the pair in all of their main level grass matches in the last 12 months, hence the pricing of this match, but the head-to-head is so overwhelmingly in favour of Ivashka that it's hard to back against him.

The price of 1.594/7 is a tad short for me though.

Clay courters trying their luck on grass

Elsewhere, Federico Delbonis is 0-11 win/loss on grass and he faces qualifier Antoine Bellier, who's yet to win a main draw match, so that feels as 50/50 as it's priced.

Taro Daniel is 0-4 on grass at main level, but got a good win in qualies against Denis Kudla, so perhaps he can nick a set against Roberto Bautista Agut, while the same could be said of Alejandro Tabilo against Benjamin Bonzi.

Bonzi has recorded some good numbers on grass and looks better suited to it than Tabilo, who's yet to win on the surface at main level.

So, a tricky day indeed, and it'll just be a half point on over 2.5 sets in Lopez/Griekspoor on Monday.