Matteo Berrettini vs Nick Kyrgios Tennis Betting Tips and Predictions - 6/11/2019

Matteo Berrettini vs Nick Kyrgios

4 am EST, 11th June 2019

ATP Stuttgart, Germany

Grass courts

Good old Nicky has been drawing attention for all the wrong reasons lately. In Rome, he was involved into a bizarre incident, when he got into argument with an umpire, threw the chair on the court and then grabbed the bag and left the scene before they were able to disqualify him. And they would do exactly that I believe because he already had a couple of warnings and point penalties in that match. After that, he was guest on a podcast, where he spoke very openly on many topics. Revealing his negative feelings regarding some top players, featuring Novak Djokovic and how he thinks Andy Murray is a better player then the Serb. He also voiced his opinion on clay courts and how it would be better to eliminate them from the ATP schedule. Shortly after that, he announced he won't be playing at the French Open, citing illness as a reason. His disapproval of clay surface was never more obvious than in the last couple of months. After winning the title in Acapulco, he was looking very lackadaisical in April and May. He simply doesn't have the patience for a proper point construction needed in slower conditions and he is not trying very hard to do something about that.

Matteo Berrettini is another very talented lad, but this he is surrounded with far less controversy if any. Contrary to Kyrgios, he had a lot of success in the past couple of months. He won a title in Budapest and had a great opportunity in Houston to get back-to-back trophies, but lost to Christian Garin in the finals. Looking just at his results, you would think he's one of those boring dirt-ballers that are unbearable to watch, which couldn't be further from the truth. He has some big weapons in his arsenal. But it is very interesting that he is failing to put it together in faster conditions, winning below 40% on hard & grass, compared to 67% on clay.

Matchup

Some of it may come from the fact that the power he's able to generate with his forehand and hit through the slower conditions is not that special and valuable in faster conditions. Other players that don't have such racket head speed can do it just as well by timing their shots well and using all the pace that comes to them. Ultimately, he is simply too talented not to get it going on grass & hard eventually, but at this point, we have to treat his case as it is. And that is being a 40% winner.

On the other side, we'll see if the clay was only a convenient excuse for him, or he's really going to show some life with tour transitioning to the greener courts. He is 20-11 on the grass and has lost to Roger in 3rs set tie-breaker of the semifinals last year in Stuttgart. His serve and ball striking alone are enough to push him through to the next round in these conditions.

Betting odds & prediction

Even with Nick looking completely disinterested in tennis lately, linemakers didn't hesitate to open him as -160 favorite. And the market pushed that price even higher to -200. I agree with the move. Matteo didn't show enough so far in his career in these type of playing conditions to be trusted here. But I think that you can get more value betting the total. Both have big serves, but that doesn't mean nobody is getting broken the entire match. This one could be way more lopsided than expected, for several reasons. I think the line should be 23.5 at most and the value being with the under at 25.

Tony's Pick: under 25 games (-108)

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