Dusan Lajovic vs Lloyd George Harris ATP Chengdu Picks 9/26/2019

Dusan Lajovic vs Lloyd George Harris

4 am EST, 26th September 2019

Chengdu, China

Hard courts

After a lot of problems with rain on Monday in Chengdu, they somehow managed to execute most of the schedule. Dusan Lajovic was one of the players that were bothered the most by the constant rain delays. Him and his opponent started their match at 11 am local time, but finished it 7 hours later after numerous rain delays. Staying focused and physically ready in those types of situations is not easy and it affected the quality of the tennis in that match. Both Lajovic and Londero played poorly and neither seemed very comfortable in these playing conditions. Luckily for Serbian player, Londero was nowhere near his best on that day and Lajovic did just enough to get into the next round. He won in three sets, spending just under 2 hours on the court. Solid returning performance was the key, because he won 40% of all the points when his opponent was serving and converted 4 out of 9 break points.

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"Duci" was very lucky with the draw in Chengdu. After facing a clay court specialist in the first round, he is getting a lucky loser in the second. Harris had to get through the qualifiers, being ranked outside of Top 100. He was stopped at the last stage by Bradley Klahn. But, after Kamil Majchrzak withdrew, he got the spot in the main draw anyway. The match was pretty much the same as Lajovic's. 3 sets and just under 2 hours needed to eliminate Marton Fucsovics. His serving performance was clinical with 12 aces and 0 double faults. Harris played at this event last year when he lost in the second round to Bernard Tomic in the tie-break of a third set. Bernie went on to win the whole thing.

Matchup

When talking about playing conditions at this event, I noticed that they are pretty fast. That is why I'm not surprised that both Lajovic and Londero struggled to find their groove in their first-round match. Even though Dusan is not a typical clay-courter, that is by far his favorite surface. He has a game that is based around heavy topspin from both wings. He can create it effortlessly and put his opponent in very uncomfortable situations when the playing conditions allow him to do that. On such a fast surface, he doesn't have the time to get to the ball and execute those shots properly. And the ball doesn't respond to the topspin the way it does on clay.

On the other side, Harris' playing style is perfectly suited for this type of court. He hits the ball flat and through the court. Puts his opponent under a lot of pressure with his ball-striking ability and I think he has a favorable matchup here.

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Betting odds & prediction

The line opened Harris +126 and moved up to +141 in some places. I think that's way too high. I made Lajovic a small favorite in the most conservative scenario. He is a better player overall and Harris can be too erratic at times. But these fast conditions are playing a massive role in how these two guys match up against each other and are giving a big edge to Harris, who will be able to play his game and overwhelm Lajovic with all the pace. Total is 22.5 which might be a bit too high. I doubt that we'll see close sets in this one. Either Harris executes well and sweeps the Serbian player off the court, or gets into series of unforced errors and can't find the way out of it.

Pick: Lloyd George Harris +141

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