Matteo Berrettini vs Andreas Seppi ATP Point Spread Picks - 6/20/2019

Matteo Berrettini vs Andreas Seppi

4 am EST, 20th June 2019

ATP Halle, Germany

Grass courts

Matteo Berrettini successfully prolonged the winning streak that he started last week in Stuttgart. Winning that title was very impressive considering that he didn't have much grass-court experience before that week. He actually had a losing record on that surface, but that only proves how much he grew as a player in last year or so and the result of that are 2 titles this year and meteoric rise through the rankings. He won that tournament with conviction, not only winning all matches in straight sets but also not dropping his serve the entire week! On Wednesday, the recipe for the win was pretty much the same. But by watching it, he didn't seem as destructive as he was in Stuttgart. Basilashvili was able to trade some punches with him in the baseline rallies. But once again, playing very strong behind its own serve helped him prevail. 10 aces with only 1 double fault. 76% of points won behind its serve and only 2 break chances offered but both of them denied.

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He'll play a more experienced fellow countryman who didn't enjoy nearly as much success this season as Berrettini did. Andreas Seppi had a summer out of horror movies. After starting the season well by being the runner-up in Sydney, he lost 10 in a row, with most of those losses being suffered on clay. With a 58-43 lifetime record on grass courts, it was expected that he'll enjoy the change of the playing conditions that might help him jumpstart his season. Win over Thomas Fabbiano in Hertogenbosch and the one over Mats Moraing here is not something to brag about, but it's a start. He always enjoyed playing in this tournament. Lost in the finals of 2015 edition to Roger Federer and is defending quarterfinals from last year, where he was defeated vs another champion - Borna Coric.

Matchup

On his way to that quarterfinal, he met his next opponent and eliminated him in the first round. It was a pretty straightforward, straight sets win back then. But as I was already saying, Berrettini improved so much as a player from a year ago, especially when talking about faster playing conditions. And we could say that Seppi regressed a bit. He's not the youngest guy on the tour anymore and being 35, trying to keep it up with these youngsters is proving to be quite challenging for him at the moment. But, if there are playing conditions where he can do it, I believe it's the grass courts. He has so much more experience here. He knows which shots to use and how to construct a point to make his opponent's job more difficult. In this case, I'm sure he'll find a way to play around Berrettini's forehand, not giving him much opportunity to set his feet, take a big swing and hit it for a winner.

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Betting odds & prediction

How much things changed in a year can't be better explained than through the odds. Seppi was favored at about -150 for their match exactly one year ago, and now he's a massive +310 underdog. Is that an overreaction or not, I'm not sure. But I know one thing for a fact. If you want some Berrettini action these days, you will be forced to pay an absolute premium and you will rarely get any value doing things like that. But, I'm not sure that the offer for taking the other side is good enough in this situation. Getting +3.5 games with Seppi might seem ok for grass courts, but I feel it's not enough to stand in Matteo's way, considering how well he's been playing lately. Seppi is not as solid behind its serve and once he gets broken, he will struggle mightily to level things out again.

Guy's Pick: Matteo Berrettini -3.5 (-109)

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