Round Robin stage
Nadal (1.41) v Tsitsipas (3.4)
Due to start at 8 pm
Nadal leads their previous matches 6-1. The last time they met was in an exhibition in Abu Dhabi in December 2019. He won on a hard court in a third set tie break. He won at this tournament last year in 3 sets. Tsitsipas’ win was on clay in the Madrid semi final in 2019. He won in 3 sets.
Tsitsipas won this tournament last season. His only loss was to Nadal. His only strong indoor result in 2020 was his title in Marseille in February. He has not quite matched his 2019 form this season but has seemed very motivated this week. He needed 3 sets in both his matches but was only broken once in each one.
Nadal went out in the round robin stages last year despite winning 2 of his 3 matches. He was impressive in his first match against Rublev this week and didn’t face a single break point. He was only broken once by Thiem but lost the match in 2 tie breaks. Even with Tsitsipas at his best in 2019 he still got beaten by Nadal.
This will be a close match. They are playing for a place in the semi finals. We have a decent chance of it going to 3 sets. There is some value on Tsitsipas. Stats for the week are close but favour Nadal. I give a slight edge to Nadal but he is priced too low. Lay Nadal around 1.25 to 1.30 and remove or reduce your liability at 1.60. Back Nadal around 1.85 to 2.00.
I have had a handful of questions in the last few months asking about the advice that I give on this blog and also on Twitter. The most common question is asking if the tips are intended to be backed and left to run.
The short answer is “NO”. The slightly longer answer is “HELL NO”. The long answer is that I very rarely leave a back bet to run until the end of the match. I can think of just 2 occasions in the last year. The clue is in the title of the site. The tips are for TRADING.
The aim of the match picks on here and in the Daily Trading Tips emails is to give you a value entry point. After that you need to manage your position. If you have little tennis trading experience here are some simple ways to manage the trade:
Once the price has reached the target price and you have entered your first trade you are waiting for a significant price move in your favour. This can be a break of serve or your player wins the set. Then you should remove some or all of your liability (risk).
If your player does not perform well and gets broken after you have entered the trade then you can exit with a loss.
