ATP Sofia Tips: Home hope Dimitrov slight value against Ivashka

It was a decent day for our bets in Seoul on Tuesday, with two of the three wagers winning at odds-against and the third one was a little unlucky when set two went to a tie break rather than set one in the Nicolas Jarry match.

There's nothing I'm keen on in Seoul on Wednesday, so the focus shifts on day three to the Sofia Open, but it has to be said that this doesn't look the most appealing of days from my betting perspective.

The one bet that I will take on, but only for half a point, is to back fan's favourite Grigor Dimitrov to beat Ilya Ivashka as slight underdog.

Ivashka had an absolute marathon of a three-setter against the durable Mikael Ymer on Monday that lasted three-and-a-half hours on this awful slow surface in Sofia.

That match - played in front of about 20 spectators - was painful to watch, with both men only winning about 60% of their first serve points and there were 24 break point chances in the match.

I'm not sure why they've come up with this pudding of a surface in Sofia lately, but that match will have taken a fair bit out of Ivashka, who in any case has inferior main level stats over the past 12 months to Dimitrov.

The Bulgarian, who you'd assume would be motivated to go well playing in his home tournament for only the second time, has a combined service points won/return points won total of 104 (Ivashka 100) and a service hold/break total of 106 (Ivashka 102).

Dimitrov also has a better win percentage this season at main level (58% compared to 54%) and his best results lately have actually come in slow conditions - in Monte-Carlo on the clay and Indian Wells (and San Diego) on slow hard courts.

Combine all of that with Ivashka's 7-26 win/loss record versus top-25 ranked opponents (2-11 in the last 12 months) and his price of 1.910/11 looks on the short side.

On a day where value looks very thin on the ground, I don't mind taking Dimitrov to win this at 2.01/1 for half a point.

Elsewhere in Sofia, it wouldn't be much of a surprise to me to see a weak showing from Lorenzo Sonego after his title last week in Metz, but Bernabe Zapata Miralles doesn't exactly inspire much confidence on indoor hard.

Lorenzo Musetti was beaten in his opening match in Sofia a year ago by a Bulgarian wild card (Dimitar Kuzmanov) and he'll be hoping to avoid the same fate when he takes on another one, Alexandar Lazarov.

Lazarov has already beaten Jiri Lehecka this week - his first win (and first sets won) in his fourth main draw appearance in Sofia - but it was another less-than-inspiring performance from Lehecka away from the clay.

Musetti should have too much there and assuming Nikoloz Basilashvili is putting in a shift this week he should have too much for Fernando Verdasco, but you never really know with Basil at the moment.

Jan-Lennard Struff has had a poor season, dropping from top-50 to number 132 in a year, but he's improved lately, with three solid wins in Davis Cup and a couple of comfortable victories in qualies here.

His game is more suited to indoor conditions than Dusan Lajovic, who's also had a poor year (dropped to number 86 from 35 a year ago) and he was playing on his favoured clay last week at the Genoa Challenger, where he made the semis.

Lajovic is 14-30 win/loss at main level on indoor hard and only once (in slow conditions in Moscow in 2019) has he bettered the second round at this level indoors since 2011.

Indeed, that Moscow second round win over Lukas Rosol in 2019 was the last time that Lajovic won a match on the ATP Tour on indoor hard, so it's tough to fancy him to turn around the 0-2 career series with Struff in this one.

Blancaneaux could upset fatigued Huesler

In these slow conditions, a case could be made for qualifier Geoffrey Blancaneaux, though, against Marc-Andrea Huesler, who's played a lot of tennis lately and was in San Diego a week ago on slow outdoor hard.

Huesler went deep in Winston-Salem as a qualifier, then went five with Denis Shapovalov in New York, then played Davis Cup in Ecuador, before heading to San Diego and now back to Europe.

Blancaneaux hasn't clocked up quite the same number of air miles, having made the semis of the Istanbul Challenger and then headed home to France to play Metz indoors before coming to Sofia and he won't fear Huesler.

The Frenchman beat the Swiss in a tight match on clay at the Zug Challenger only eight weeks ago as a 2.809/5 chance and he's a similar price today, if a touch shorter.

He's only played two main level matches in his career so far (the French Open this year and the 2017 US Open as a wild card) so this will be his first ATP Tour main draw match and the slow conditions won't be ideal for Huesler's game.

At all levels, Blancaneaux has a 62% win rate against lefties, compared to 51% against right-handers, so the Frenchman may have his chances in this one.

It's not strong enough for me to have a bet though and on what looks a very tough day for betting value I'll just take half a point on Dimitrov.