Chile Open Tips: Tie-breaks likely when Jarry faces Monteiro in Santiago

The tour heads to Chile, the UAE and Mexico in week eight with ATP 250 and 500 tennis on clay and outdoor hard courts, with most of the world's highest-ranked players in action.

At the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships they play on a quick Decoturf II court - well, it's quick and the balls fly in the day sessions, but at night it's cold and pretty slow.

It's well-known for its tough conditions, making it difficult to control the ball, and consequently it features very few tie-breaks - just 29% of its matches have featured a tie-break in the last nine editions.

Service holds average 78% in the last six editions and only 26% of the Dubai underdogs on average have won in the last nine editions.

The Abierto Mexicano Telcel in Acapulco moves to a brand new purpose built stadium this year and this is another hard court event that features few tie-breaks (32% of its matches have featured one since it moved to hard from clay in 2014).

It also usually offers up few underdog winners - an average of 28% in the eight years that it's been played on hard courts.

The Chile Dove Men+Care Open is played on red clay at just over 800m of altitude and in its two years on the ATP Tour the event has averaged more service holds than Acapulco and the same as Dubai.

It's also featured far more tie-breaks than either Acapulco or Dubai (43% of its matches so far have had at least one breaker) and a whopping 46% of the Santiago underdogs have won so far.

Due to the difficult playing time in Acapulco for European viewers, I'll be focussing mainly on Santiago and Dubai this week.

Djokovic fired up for return

On day one in Dubai, Novak Djokovic is the main point of interest for many, and the world number one (who could lose that mantle to Daniil Medvedev this week) faces Lorenzo Musetti in the night match at (not before) 20:30 local time.

That's around 16:30 UK time and looking back at Djokovic's record in Dubai, it shows that only once (on his first appearance in 2007 as the world number 14) has he so much as dropped a set in his first match of the week here.

Ten times in a row since beating Kristof Vliegen 2-1 in '07 he's won in straight sets and not one of those 20 sets has gone past 10 games, so Musetti is up against as far as history is concerned.

This is different, though, because usually Djokovic has arrived in Dubai after his (usually successful) Australian Open campaign and this time he comes here having not played a competitive match since early December last year.

Musetti has the skills to make this a tough first test, but Djokovic will probably be fired up for this after the Melbourne fiasco, so as tempting as it is to side with Musetti in some way I think I'll pass.

Marin Cilic is generally pretty strong against left-handers such as Jiri Vesely (won 70% of his main level hard court matches versus lefties) and he's yet to lose to one ranked any lower than 77 in the world.

Cilic is yet to lose to a left-hander ranked any lower than 77 in the world.

He's 19-1 win/loss on all hard courts versus lefties (one loss to Ramos in Shanghai in 2011) so he's likely to defeat 121st-ranked Vesely, who was 1-4 win/loss in Dubai before this weekend's qualies.

Malek Jaziri is way past his best these days at the age of 38, but he's played well in Dubai in years gone by (semis in 2018) and it wouldn't stun me if he tested the inconsistent Filip Krajinovic for a while.

Conditions should suit Andy Murray

Talking of inconsistent, that's Andy Murray these days.

The Scot played a nice match against Taro Daniel last week in Doha before being blitzed 6-0, 6-1 by Roberto Bautista Agut the next day.

We see tantalising glimpses of the old Murray followed by matches filled with the sort of errors he barely ever used to make in his prime, so it makes him a difficult player to get involved with from a betting perspective.

We see tantalising glimpses of the old Murray followed by matches filled with the sort of errors he barely ever used to make in his prime

He faces Christopher O'Connell on Monday, who qualified well, but the slow conditions at night (not before 19:00 local time they start) will probably suit Murray.

Daniel is one to watch in-play

The other match on Monday, which is on Court 1, is the aforementioned Taro Daniel, who takes on the struggling David Goffin.

Goffin's confidence is so weak these days that even when he plays well for stages in a match it takes little to knock him back and last week he collapsed from a set and 4-2 up to win only one more game in the match.

That was against Emil Ruusuvuori in Doha and on this season's form as a whole it's tempting to back Daniel, but we saw how much the slower conditions took from his serve last week in Doha.

Another late afternoon/evening match won't suit him, but he could be one to keep and eye on in play if the price becomes tempting - maybe from a break or set down, with Goffin's confidence on the floor right now.

Jarry set to star in Santiago

Moving on to Santiago now and they have four matches on their schedule on day one, starting at 11:30 local time (14:30 UK time) with an all-Argentinean affair between qualifier Juan Ignacio Londero and Tomas Etcheverry.

That one looks priced about right and then it's Facundo Bagnis taking on Bernabe Zapata Miralles, who's only played two matches at any senior level in his career in South America (and lost them both).

The Spaniard was playing on hard courts two weeks ago in Rotterdam and made his Golden Swing debut last week in qualies for Rio and lost in straight sets to Yannick Hanfmann.

BZM has had a problem holding serve so far at main level on the clay, with only 61% holds of serve and 55% total points won on serve in 11 matches (4-7 win/loss).

His combined service points won/return points won total is 98 due to his better-than-average return game, but he still trails Bagnis (100) in Bagnis' last 12 months on clay at main level.

Bagnis has the distinct advantage of being a finalist in Santiago (last season) and he's held serve 83% of the time in his six career matches at this tournament so far.

I'd favour Bagnis here, but I'm not seeing any major value.

Chilean hope and Santiago local, Nicolas Jarry, gets the prime time 21:00 (local time) slot on Monday against Thiago Monteiro and his big game should be well-suited to his hometown tournament, where he's actually yet to win a match.

He's only played two main level matches here, but has gone well at the Challengers in Santiago, so he may be a threat this week on his best form.

As ever for Jarry, the problem is his return game, which has never been strong, and the last time he played in Santiago he lost in three tie breaks to Frances Tiafoe.

Given also that the last time that Jarry faced Monteiro it went to three tie-breaks as well (at the Salzburg-Anif Challengerat 450m of altitude in July of last year) there's a pretty good chance of a breaker or two in this match.

Jarry has broken serve just 17% of the time against lefties on clay at main level and played 0.33 tie breaks per set at all altitudes, but at altitude versus lefties at main level he's played 18 sets and eight of them (44%) have been breakers.

In six matches on clay at altitude versus left-handers the opening set has gone to a tie break five times

In those six matches on clay at altitude versus left-handers the opening set has gone to a tie break five times, so 3.2011/5 about an opening set breaker is fair enough and for an even bigger price, over 1.5 tie breaks at 7.06/1 looks the bet.

Or keep it simple at 1.834/5 about there being a tie-break in the match.

I'll take half a point on a set one tie break and half a point on over 1.5 tie breaks.