The action continues in Acapulco with the Abierto Mexicano Telcel semi-finals taking place this Friday. Bookmakers Review breaks down the fixtures below and lists the best available odds from green listed bookmakers.
ATP Acapulco – Cilic vs. Nadal
Two Grand Slam champions will fight this Friday for a place in the ATP Acapulco Final – Marin Cilic and Rafael Nadal.
After Novak Djokovic’s surprising defeat against Nick Kyrgios in the previous round, Rafael Nadal is now the main favourite to lift the trophy in Acapulco. The high bouncing conditions in Acapulco clearly suit Nadal’s heavy topspin forehand with the Spaniard holding a phenomenal 13 – 0 career record on this event. However, this is Nadal’s first appearance in Acapulco since the tournament takes place on Hard Court.
Marin Cilic couldn’t ask for an easier task in the previous round with Steve Johnson withdrawing from the competition before their quarter-finals meeting. Despite his apperance on this event’s semi-finals, things haven’t been easy for Cilic this season with the Croat winning only 55.56% of the matches played in 2017.
This will be the 5th career meeting between these two players with Nadal leading on the h2h by 3 – 1.
Even though Cilic is always a dangerous opponent due to his powerful serve, the game conditions in Acapulco are not the best for his game style. Besides this, the Croat has been far from impressive this season. With this in mind, Nadal is the clear favourite for this match with Coral offering 33/100 for his victory while Cilic is available at 12/5 at William Hill. Due to the low value on Rafael’s moneyline, our suggestion is for you to take his -3.0 game handicap at 3/4 at Pinnacle.
WTA Acapulco – Lucic-Baroni vs. Tsurenko
Regardless of this Friday’s result one thing is certain, Mirjana Lucic-Baroni already assured her return to the top 30 next week. At the age of 34, Lucic-Baroni is finally living up to the expectations with the former junior world no.1 featuring a remarkable run in Melbourne – losing only in the semi-finals against Serena Williams. Looking now to Mirjana’s campaign so far on this event, the Croat reaches this stage of the competition after three straight sets victories over Belinda Bencic, Shelby Rogers and Pauline Parmentier.
Lesia Tsurenko continues her impressive run in Acapulco with the Ukrainian booking a place in the semi-finals after a 6 – 3 7 – 6 triumph over the 3rd seed – Jelena Ostapenko. When looking to Tsurenko’s numbers throughout the week, the highlight clearly goes to her serve with the world no.50 winning 82.60% of her service games in Acapulco. Besides her impressive numbers on serve, Lesia also generated an impressive average of 1.18 break points per game.
This is the second meeting between this pair with Tsurenko emerging victorious five years ago in Brisbane by 4 – 6 6 – 3 6 – 0.
This should be a very entertaining match between two players who reach this semi-finals without dropping a single set. Despite Lucic-Baroni’s outstanding results, the Croat only won 56.70% of her service games on this event. On the other hand, Tsurenko only allowed four breaks of serve throughout the whole tournament. Having said that, Lesia is definitely the right play on the moneyline with the Ukrainian available at 26/25 at Pinnacle while Ladbrokes offers 91/100 for Lucic-Baroni’s victory. Besides the value on Lesia’s odds, we also expect a very close affair, which makes the Over 21.5 at 93/100 at Pinnacle a valuable approach to this match.
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