Playing on the big stages brings the best out of Alexander Zverev. At the age of 20, Zverev became the first player outside the ‘Big Four’ of Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray to win multiple Masters 1000 titles in a season since David Nalbandian in 2007. Adding to this, the German didn’t experience any problems on his debut in Shanghai with Aljaz Bedene retiring from the match after just 12 minutes on court.
The former world no.4 – Juan Martin Del Potro – continues to pursue his first ATP World Tour title since the 2016 Stockholm Open. Despite Del Potro’s undeniable quality, the Argentinean’s backhand is not good enough to compete against the best players in the world. For that reason, it’s not surprising to see the 2009 US Open champion to lose 75.00% of the matches played against top-10 opponents in 2017.
The bookmakers expect a close encounter with Zverev as the slight favourite at 79/100 at Pinnacle while Juan Martin is available at 6/5 at Coral. Despite Del Potro’s higher experience at this level, it won’t be easy for the Argentinean to find the answer to Alexander’s incredible backhand. With this in mind, our suggestion is for you to place a bet on Zverev’s moneyline as the best betting approach for this contest.
Best Play: Alexander Zverev ML at 79/100 at Pinnacle
Grigor Dimitrov continues his quest for a first ever appearance at the ATP World Tour Finals in London. Known as one of the most talented players in the game, the 26-year-old is finally living up to expectations. In addition to his outstanding 70.91% winning record in 2017, the former junior world no.1 won his first Masters 1000 title at the Western & Southern Open in Cincinnati. Looking now at Grigor’s campaign on this event, the Bulgarian reaches this stage of the competition after saving three match points against Ryan Harrison on his debut in Shanghai.
Regardless of this Thursday’s outcome, Sam Querrey already secured his career-high ranking next week with an unprecedented appearance on the top-13. Known as one of the biggest servers in the game, the fast court conditions in Shanghai are perfect for Sam’s powerful game style. Adding to this, Querrey fired an impressive average of 1.70 aces per service game on his previous two matches at the Shanghai Rolex Masters.
This will be the 3rd career meeting between these two players with Dimitrov leading on the h2h by 2 – 0.
As the h2h suggests, Dimitrov is far from an easy match-up for the American. Due to Grigor’s exceptional return to serve, it won’t be easy for Querrey to win as many free points on serve as he did in the previous rounds. Having said that, the value is definitely on Dimitrov’s tennis betting odds at 67/100 at BetVictor while Bet365 offers 13/10 for Querrey’s victory.
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