Juan I. Londero vs Rafael Nadal French Open Tips - 6/2/2019

Juan Ignacio Londero vs Rafael Nadal

4am EST, 2nd June 2019

Roland Garros (Paris, France)

Intro

Goffin managed to take a set from the King of the clay and show that there are some chinks in his armor. He is simply not as dominant on clay anymore, as he was earlier in his career when he won 11 French Open titles. That has never been more obvious than this year when he was losing matches that he would easily have won in previous years. Fognini in Monte Carlo, Thiem in Barcelona and Tsitsipas in Madrid. All of them in semifinals and two of them in straight sets. That was before beating exhausted Novak Djokovic in Rome final to regain the trust of the betting market.

Juan Ignacio Londero has never faced Rafael Nadal so far, which is not surprising for someone that spent the majority of his pre-2019 career on challenger tour, where Rafa hasn't played since being a teenager. He doesn't have much experience on the main tour, because he made his breakthrough just a couple of months ago, by winning the title in Cordoba. So far, he dealt well with stepping up in competition, but he's going to find out that there are levels to this game.

Matchup

Argentinian is playing very well at the moment. His current form reminds me of those performances in Cordoba. Hitting the ball so well from the middle of the court, putting a lot of pressure on his opponents and testing their defensive skills to the limit. Basilashvili and Gasquet were far from solving that puzzle. While Moutet brought some more variety to the table and changed the dynamics of the match a little bit. Stole two sets and caused the match to be very competitive, but it was not enough to push Londero over the edge. There are some similarities in what Moutet and Nadal do. They are both lefties that can open up the court with their cross-court forehand. They both move and defend really well. But the difference is that Rafa does it on a much higher level. He is a faster, stronger and deadlier version that Londero is not going to enjoy playing.

Betting odds & prediction

As expected, odds are very lopsided. An underdog in +2500 range. Spread is +11 and total is 25.5 games. Talking matchups and stuff like that is fine, but in the end, everything comes down to the numbers. So with that being said, even with all the advantages that Rafael has over Juan Ignacio, I'm struggling to see this total line below 26. A near perfect performance is needed for Nadal to keep this one under it. While Londero is feeling the ball pretty well at the moment and has nothing to lose here. He needs only 8 games to win this one for us.

Josh's Pick: over 25.5 games (+105)

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