Miomir Kecmanovic vs Jordan Thompson Tennis Betting Tips and Predictions - 6/28/2019

Miomir Kecmanovic vs Jordan Thompson

5:30 am EST, 28th June 2019

ATP Antalya, Turkey

Grass courts

If I'm not mistaken, this is the best result for Miomir Kecmanovic on the ATP tour, after falling to Milos Raonic in the quarterfinals of Indian Wells couple months ago. He will not turn 20 until August and he is already making serious strides towards Top 50, even though he's been a regular on the main tour for about 6 months or so now. He didn't struggle too much with the transition, after having some success on challenger tour last year and being No. 1 junior player in the world couple years ago. That talent was on full display this week, where he fought his way into his first semifinals without dropping a set. First, he dealt with two of his peers, Jaume Munar, and Ugo Humbert and then defeated far more experienced fellow countryman - Viktor Troicki. That was a matchup that might throw off many players on grass courts because Troicki knows how to play on this surface and use its uniqueness into his advantage. But Kecmanovic was not fazed one bit. He played really well behind his serve, which is very difficult to do vs a quality returner like Viktor. He won 76 % of those points and saved all 3 break points. Experienced Serbian was slicing the ball a lot to see how Miomir is going to react to a low bounce, but it didn't seem to cause him too many issues. He was also able to find the target vs net approaches when needed.

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Jordan Thompson managed to rack a nice amount of points since the start of the grass court season. Holding a grass court record 2-9 coming into it, he was not expected to make any deep runs in this part of the season. But he proved everybody wrong by being runner-up in Hertogenbosch and now being close to build on that and win his first title in Antalya. As a No.3 seed, he had the privilege to sit out the first round. Did just enough to beat Bradley Klahn in the second round and get a chance to play defending champion in the quarterfinals. It was an up and down first set in that match. They were exchanging momentum and the lead. It seemed like Dzumhur was slightly ahead after defending a couple of set points in the 10th game, but after failing to break in 11th, he simply tanked next 3 games and retired due to heat or whatever.

Matchup

Interesting enough, these two players met last year in the first round of Zhuhai challenger. They both managed to make quite a progress since then, meeting in semifinals of ATP 250 now. Back then, Kecmanovic won easily in straight sets and I wouldn't be surprised if that happens again in Antalya. Courts are pretty bad in this tournament. Bounce is very low and it seems like Kecmanovic struggled with it less than Thompson so far. His groundstrokes are much better and he'll dominate the baseline rallies. I can see Aussie mixing it up a bit and throwing in some chip & charge to come to the net and force young Serbian to hit the target. But that is a test that he successfully passed vs Troicki already. I don't see Jordan throwing at him something that he could not handle at the moment.

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Betting odds & prediction

The line opened favoring Jason Thompson, which does make a lot of sense if we look at his recent results on this playing surface. But as I mentioned above, I belive that Kecmanovic is playing better tennis at this event, is a more talented player and is less affected by the low bounce of these courts in Antalya. With all that being said, getting him at +136 represents a very nice value for me.

Tony's Pick: Miomir Kecmanovic +136

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