Cordoba Open Tips: Hanfmann generously priced against Londero

The ATP Tour returns in week five of the season and they play on three different surfaces - clay, outdoor hard and indoor hard - this week in France, Argentina and India at ATP 250 level.

In France, the Open Sud de France is played indoors in Montpellier on a Greenset surface and has Alexander Zverev as its main attraction this week, with Dominic Thiem the big name in Cordoba.

Over in India at the Tata Open Maharashtra in Pune they're on a Plexipave outdoor hard court in 32C heat (in the shade) so it's one of the faster events on tour.

In the three years that Pune has been part of the ATP Tour, its quick conditions have produced the highest frequency of tie break matches of all, with a whopping 59% of its matches so far featuring at least one tie break.

Pune also ranks in the top-10 for average service holds, too, so expect a serve-dominated week at this tournament that's played at around 560m of altitude.

It hasn't produced too many underdog winners though, with an average of just 31% so far, and round one has seen only 25% underdog winners in Pune's three years on the tour.

Cordoba ripe for a few shocks

That's in stark contrast to the Cordoba Open, where its status as the first clay event of the season usually leads to quite a few underdog winners.

It's averaged 43% underdog winners so far in its three years on the ATP Tour and that puts it in second place of all of the main level tournaments currently featuring in the season.

There's a bit of altitude here, too, (415m) but service holds are about average for a clay tournament at 74% and only 33% of its matches so far have featured a tie break.

In Montpellier, they've averaged 43% tie break matches in the past nine editions of the Open Sud de France and 33% underdog winners (round one alone also averages 33%).

Service holds are about average (79%) in its last five editions and conditions are around medium paced here at the Arena Montpellier.

The one that could be worth an interest in Pune on Monday is the last match of the day on Centre Court - Prajnesh Gunneswaran versus Daniel Altmaier.

On these lively Pune courts the lefty game of Gunneswaran could cause problems for the attackable single handed backhand of Altmaier, whose best results at main level have come on clay (two semi finals and the last-16 of the French Open).

On hard courts the German is 1-6 win/loss at main level and on outdoor hard only he's 1-4 with a hold/break total of 90, so he's yet to show a great deal at this level in these conditions.

Altmaier has had some decent results on hard and indoor hard at Challenger level, while Gunneswaran had some injury issues towards the end of last season, so you'd have to make Altmaier favourite, but 1.392/5 is rather short.

Altmaier has never been shorter than 1.4840/85 for a main level match before and he did lose his one career clash with Gunneswaran, which was also on a hard court in India back in 2019 when Altmaier created just one break point all match.

The concern with Gunneswaran is that he struggled with injury towards the end of last season, but he should be motivated here playing in India's only ATP event and he should be more used to the conditions.

Montpellier's schedule on Monday has just two main draw matches and they're both intriguing affairs.

David Goffin is defending his Montpellier title, but it looks a tall order for him to do so given all of his fitness and form issues over the nine months or so.

He got injured again in Sydney at the start of 2022 (again the left knee) and he sounded pretty downbeat after he lost to Dan Evans comfortably at the Australian Open.

"I didn't feel well, especially after the lost first set. I couldn't find a way to get back into the match and struggled with my emotions and thoughts. I hesitated with every shot and not a single ball came out. I didn't find any solution. I'm very disappointed. I no longer found the fighting spirit and was lost on the court. It was very tough today."

So, this could be a good opportunity for the improving Benjamin Bonzi, who was a set up on Goffin in this event last year and ended up losing 7-5 in the third, to get some revenge over the struggling Belgian.

Bonzi had a great year in 2021 at Challenger level, winning three titles in a row in September, but he still hasn't transferred that form to main level, with his record now reading 7-14 win/loss and 2-5 since that hat-trick of Challenger titles.

It's hard to call the other Montpellier match, with Alexander Bublik totally unpredictable and the in-form Tallon Griekspoor perhaps fatigued after a tough few matches in Australia and a withdrawal a few weeks ago with a foot injury.

Two odds against bets to back

Cordoba has provided a lot of underdog winners in its time on the tour and on Monday's card Yannick Hanfmann is a tempting one.

Hanfmann takes on Juan Ignacio Londero, the former Cordoba champion, who hasn't shown anything resembling title-winning tennis for a very long time.

Londero hasn't won a single match on the main tour since the 2020 French Open and after imploding in the Buenos Aires semi-finals two years ago he hasn't been the same player.

Indeed, Londero spent the second half of 2021 at Challenger level and made the final of one such event, but hardly made a great impression at that level.

Londero hasn't won a single match on the main tour since the 2020 French Open and after imploding in the Buenos Aires semi finals two years ago he hasn't been the same player.

He hasn't played a competitive match since losing to world number 524 Igor Ribeiro Marcondes at the Florionopolis Challenger in December (tested positive for Covid in late December and withdrew from a Challenger last week) and he's now won just six of his last 30 matches against top-150 ranked opponents.

Londero has also lost four of his last five matches in Argentina, so I'm happy to take him on today with the big hitting Hanfmann, who's won four of his five matches so far in 2022, with the one loss coming to someone called Nadal.

Taking the stats of the pair's main level clay matches since the start of 2020 into account we see that Hanfmann has held serve 79% of the time (Londero 71%) and broken 28% of the time (Londero 21%).

Hanfmann has won 71% of his first serve points (Londero 63%) and 50% of his second serve points (Londero 56%) and 63% service points won overall (Londero 60%).

The German is also ahead on return points won (40% to 37%) and he's won 68% of his matches (Londero 33%) so all told I'm happy with the price on Hanfmann here at around 2.26/5.

The change of surface from hard to clay for Hanfmann is one concern here, but given Londero's form lately I don't mind taking the risk that Hanfmann has had enough time to prepare - he's here on a protected ranking, so should be motivated.

So, I'll take a one point win on Hanfmann and half a point on Gunneswaran on Monday.