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.

 

Round Robin stage

Djokovic (1.46) v Medvedev (3.1)

Due to start at 8 pm

Djokovic leads their previous matches 4-2.

Their most recent meeting was in January 2020.Djokovic won on a hard court in 3 sets. Their only indoor match was in 2017 when Medvedev retired. Their only match that ended in straight sets went to Djokovic on grass in 2017.

Djokovic has better overall results. Both players have very strong indoor records.

Djokovic was fairly comfortable against Diego Schwartzman 2 days ago despite being broken early in the match. He has a superb record at the year end finals and since they moved to London’s O2 Arena he has won it 4 times (2015, 14, 13, 12) and made the final in 2018 and 2017. Last year he was recovering from shoulder surgery and didn’t make it through the round robin stages.

Medvedev had a straight sets win over Alex Zverev who had a really poor match. Zverev struggled partly due to Medvedev’s strong play but also seemed to have other issues that were distracting him. Perhaps there has been a development in his case of being accused of assault by an ex girlfriend. Whatever his problem was it really affected his confidence. Having broken the Medvedev serve in the opening game of the match Zverev seemed almost scared to hit a second serve and immediately handed the break of serve back. Medvedev has been in strong form recently and won the indoor title at the Paris Masters 2 weeks ago.

Medvedev always seems to give Djokovic problems and he should take a set today. Lay Djokovic around 1.25 and remove some or all of your liability at 1.40. Lay the winner of the first set.