Tennys Sandgren vs Andy Murray ATP Zhuhai Picks 9/24/2019

Tennys Sandgren vs Andy Murray

7:30 am EST, 24th September 2019

Zhuhai, China

Hard courts

Andy Murray's matches draw a lot of attention this year. He had a back injury earlier this year that was so bad that he even thought about retiring. He made a return to the tennis courts after a 6-month absence and tennis fans would like to see him find his old form. But unfortunately, that didn't happen so far. He mostly participated in doubles in order to ease his way back into competitive tennis. In those rare occasions when he did play singles, he didn't do very well. He was 0-2 on the ATP tour before trying his luck in Mallorca challenger, where he lost in the third round to Matteo Viola (?!), who is ranked 218th in the world. He never played in Zhuhai before, but he enjoyed this Asian swing back when he was a Top 5 player. He won 4 titles in Bejing and Shanghai.

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He is playing against Tennys Sandgren in the first round. American player didn't enjoy much success on his home soil either. He opened American hard court swing with 3 losses in a row but finished it on a high note with 3rd round at US Open. This will be his debut in Zhuhai, after playing at Chengdu in the same week last year (lost to Kukushkin in the first round)

Matchup

It is very interesting that they have only met once and it happened just a couple of weeks ago. Sandgren was the better player that time around in Winston Salem and won the match in straight sets. Playing conditions in Zhuhai doesn't seem as fast as in Chengdu or some other Asian events. Considering the playing styles of both guys, we should see long rallies. Neither of them plays with a lot of power. They play with a decent margin from the back of the court, looking to grind their opponent down with a solid baseline game. High humidity should also be a factor here. Long rallies and a lot of running in these conditions will test the fitness of both players. And let's remember that Murray played only a handful of singles matches since returning from injury. Sandgren needs to be patient, get the ball back in play and try to extend the rallies. This way, he will wear Murray down and have an advantage later in the match, with Andy running out of gas on the other side.

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Betting odds & prediction

The line opened at Sandgren +150 and dropped down to +120 since then. I do agree with the move, but don't understand why was Murray favored by that much. If we look back to their previous match, the pricing was very similar. Sandgren won that one in straight sets, while Murray did nothing to raise his stocks since then. That is why I don't think that Andy should be favored in this match.

Total is set at 21.5, which is pretty low for an evenly priced match on the hard courts. I am aware that neither player has a massive serve to play behind. But when you have two pretty evenly matched players that are projected to battle it out in some longer rallies, we usually see momentum switching from one side to the other often. Players adjusting to the game of their opponent and finding solutions. In these situations, we'll often see a third set, which is why I like the over here.

Pick: over 21.5 games -115

Read more articles by Josh Schonwald