Don’t miss our top tennis plays for this Saturday’s action in Chengdu with Denis Istomin and Yuichi Sugita fighting for a place in the decisive match. Bookmakers Review breaks down the fixture below and lists the best available odds from green listed bookmakers.
Istomin vs. Sugita
As we predicted in our quarter-finals analysis, Dusan Lajovic couldn’t find the answer to Yuichi Sugita’s aggressive game style. Regardless of this Saturday’s outcome, Sugita already secured his career-high ranking next week with an unprecedented appearance in the top 40. Famous for his outstanding return to serve, the 29-year-old Japanese won 41.18% of the points played on Lajovic’s serve in the previous round.
Denis Istomin continues his impressive run in Chengdu. After a brilliant start to 2017, the last month hasn\’t been easy for Istomin with a poor 14 – 22 record since his extraordinary campaign at the Australian Open. Nevertheless, Istomin is enjoying great success on this event with victories over Jan-Lennard Struff, Karen Khachanov and Jared Donaldson. Adding to this, the player from Uzbekistan won 94.40% of his service games at the Chengdu Open.
This will be the 2nd career meeting between these two players with Istomin winning their previous encounter at the Davis Cup in 2009.
Despite Istomin’s lead on the h2h, it won’t be easy for the Uzbek to overcome such a tough opponent as Sugita. The bookmakers agree with us with the Japanese as the favourite for this match at 63/100 at 5Dimes while Denis is available at 3/2 at Bet365. Besides the value in Sugita’s moneyline, placing a bet on his -2.5 game handicap at 19/20 at Pinnacle is also an interesting betting approach for this contest.
Best Play: Yuichi Sugita -2.5 Game Handicap at 19/20 at Pinnacle
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