Cordoba Open Tips: Is Londero back to his best on home soil?

Post-major weeks can be a little unpredictable and we've had to suffer from pretty average performances at best so far, not least from Hugo Gaston and Peter Gojowczyk on Tuesday.

I've been happy with the odds on all of the bets so far this week, but as can be the case when you're exclusively backing underdogs, you have to suffer some lean spells.

Talking of lean spells, number two seed in Pune this week, Lorenzo Musetti has been struggling for a while now, but should he be underdog against Aleksander Vukic?

Musetti hasn't become a bad player overnight, but he's yet to really recover his best form after off-court issues hampered his progress last season.

But the Italian has shown us his quality on hard courts as well as clay, notably beating Dimitrov, Schwartzman and Tiafoe to make the Acapulco semi finals just over a year ago and he may benefit from the late afternoon conditions in Pune.

Vukic played well at home in Australia, but struggled to beat world number 158 Hugo Grenier in a final set tie break in round one here and notably wasn't impressed with the conditions.

"I'm surprised at how slow it is out here," Vukic said. "It was difficult to hit through the court. The serve is effective, but when the rallies started its actually pretty slow."

That should give Musetti his opportunity and while it's clearly a risky one given Musetti's struggles, I can't have Vukic, who was beaten in straight sets by Radu Albot at the Australian Open at this price.

Injury and fitness concerns in Montpellier

Wednesday's card at the Open Sud De France in Montpellier has the three remaining first round matches and three from the second round.

Alejandro Davidovich Fokina versus Adrian Mannarino looks to me like it'll probably shape up into a real grind, with neither man having huge weapons and I did lean towards Mannarino after his form in Melbourne.

A really streaky sort, Mannarino's confidence comes and goes and he's often one to follow while he's at peak level mentally, but ADF has won 17 of his last 19 matches against lefties at all levels (5-1 at main level) and Mannarino has a weak record in Montpellier (3-5 win/loss) so I'll pass on that one.

Also tough to gauge is the match between Mackenzie McDonald and Ilya Ivashka, with the latter having not played since November 3 last year due to an ankle injury.

McDonald and Ivashka met three times last season, with Ivashka winning the two played on clay and McDonald the one on outdoor hard, but we're guessing as to how fit Ivashka will be today.

The remaining first round match also has a few question marks about it and that's also due to fitness concerns surrounding Ugo Humbert and Richard Gasquet.

This pair met at the Australian Open a few weeks ago when Humbert was priced up as a 1.321/3 chance and Gasquet won in four sets on a windy day in Melbourne and then Humbert was diagnosed as having Covid.

That meant that Humbert had to stay an extra week in Australia to isolate, while Gasquet had nothing left in the tank for his next match in Melbourne, in which he retired.

Interestingly, after that match, Gasquet heralded himself as being "one of the best" wind players in the world and reckoned he'd be top-15 if every match was played in the wind.

Obviously, there'll be no wind around on Wednesday indoors in Montpellier, but it's another one where we're guessing on the fitness of the protagonists.

On the face of it, considering a match between Alexander Bublik and Pierre Hugues-Herbert would usually involve thinking about tie breaks, but Bublik has played surprisingly few in his indoor career so far.

Of his 39 main level matches indoors Bublik has only played 12 tie breaks in 95 sets and held serve just 77% of the time, which is a pretty low number for a player that has as big a serve as Bublik does.

Of his 39 main level matches indoors Bublik has only played 12 tie breaks in 95 sets.

Indeed, Bublik has served a ton of double faults indoors (over half a double fault per service game in those 39 matches) and consequently won only 44% of his second serve points.

So, I'd find it hard to back the unpredictable Bublik as favourite against Herbert, considering he's behind the Frenchman on pretty much all of the key stats. Indeed, there could be an argument for backing Herbert as slight underdog in this one.

Talking of unpredictable, that brings me to Nikoloz Basilashvili, who makes his debut in the 2022 Open Sud De France against the equally hard to call Damir Dzumhur.

Qualifier Dzumhur has played very well this week so far, considering he was easily beaten by Pablo Andujar in Melbourne and lost to Andrey Kuznetsov at the Quimper Challenger last week.

So, it's a bit of a surprise that he was able to bagel Alex Molcan and take his place in round two for a first career meeting with Basilashvili, who's yet to win a match so far in 2022.

There was talk of him having had Covid and Basil has certainly looked off the pace this year, but you would expect the Georgian to have too much firepower for Dzumhur to cope with - if Basil has a decent day.

Basil has struggled sometimes with opponents that get everything back (lost twice to Murray already in 2022) and it's not impossible that Dzumhur could win this by drawing Basil into a slew of rash errors.

Finally, I wonder how fit Roberto Bautista Agut is this week, with the Spaniard having already withdrawn from Rotterdam next week?

Over the years, RBA has found the game of Gilles Simon a little tricky to deal with, having lost five times to Simon in their seven career meetings.

Only one of those (which RBA won) has been played in the last four years though and Simon is now 37 and has had to qualify this week in Montpellier and then play almost three hours to beat Lucas Pouille last night.

So, he's been on court for six hours and 40 minutes already this week, which will probably mean he won't have enough in the tank to challenge RBA - assuming RBA is fit himself.

And then we have Simon's buddy from many years of Davis Cup duty - Jo Wilfried Tsonga - who managed to get his first main level win since March 2021 when he beat a nervy Kacper Zuk on Tuesday.

The 36-year-old hasn't won back-to-back matches since the 2019 Paris Masters and I'm not sure that I fancy Tsonga upsetting Filip Krajinovic on the level that Tsonga has produced in recent times.

Perhaps he's much fitter this year, in which case he could spring a surprise against the inconsistent Krajinovic, but I'd want a bigger price than this about Tsonga.

Is Londero back to his old self?

I didn't like the price at all on Juan Ignacio Londero in round one against Yannick Hanfmann, but he did the job really well, winning 81% of his second serve points and not facing a break point all match.

Hanfmann wasn't bad, but that's the best that Londero has played in a very long time. Question is, can he keep it up?

If so, he has a good chance at home as underdog today against Pedro Martinez, who toiled for almost three hours to edge past Thiago Monteiro in a final set tie break in round one.

That's the best that Londero has played in a very long time. Question is, can he keep it up?

That was a match that Monteiro should have won, leading 5-3 in the final set, but as is often the case with the Brazlian, he was unable to see it through.

If Martinez plays as far behind the baseline against Londero as he did against Monteiro the Argentine will be able to tee off on his big shots and put the pressure on Martinez, who was far from impressive.

On a day where value looks hard to come by I'll take two risky ones for half a point each in Musetti at 2.3611/8 and Londero at 2.8415/8.