ATP Bucharest Betting: Talented Goffin to return to form in Bucharest
The clay swing of the ATP World Tour 2013 continues this week with tournaments taking place in Barcelona and Bucharest and Sean Calvert has identified a 51.0 shot that he likes in the BRD Nastase Tiriac Trophy...
The Barcelona Open Banc Sabadell is an excellent ATP 500 event to visit and wander around the courts in the sunshine, but it doesn't hold any interest for me from an outright betting viewpoint due to the presence of one Rafael Nadal.
David Ferrer is the number one seed and there's also Tomas Berdych, Nico Almagro, Milos Raonic and Kei Nishikori on show, but Nadal's appearance makes it a non-starter in terms of having a wager.
So, the considerably more open field in Romania for the BRD Nastase Tiriac Trophy - an ATP 250 event - holds my interest this week in trying to find a good priced winner.
My back to lay on Richard Gasquet in Monte Carlo yielded a profit, as the Frenchman was as low as 25.0 from 65.0 as he reached the quarter finals, before a lacklustre exit at the hands of Fabio Fognini.
The Italian is one of the contenders again this week after his career best performance in reaching the last four in Monte Carlo, but his price has taken a dip as a consequence.
Fognini is drawn in the bottom half, along with fellow Italian Andreas Seppi, who The Fog defeated last week, and number two seed Gilles Simon, plus Jarkko Nieminen, who reached the last eight in Monte Carlo and Gael Monfils and Viktor Troicki.
Others in that section look of limited appeal and include the likes of Lukas Rosol, who may have been boosted by a good performance in Davis Cup, Marinko Matosevic who beat a poor Fernando Verdasco in Monte Carlo, Gilles Muller, Paul-Henri Mathieu and Tobias Kamke.
The top half features number one seed Janko Tipsarevic, who holds little interest to me in his current state, after a poor season and who seems to be enduring rather than enjoying the tour grind just now.
Mikhail Youzhny has chances after a decent showing against Novak Djokovic in Monte Carlo and David Goffin may find this relatively low profile event a good platform with which to rebuild his confidence.
The two Romanians Victor Hanescu and Adrian Ungur should at least be putting in a decent effort in their home country, but Bucharest-born Hanescu hasn't won a match here since reaching the final in 2007 and played Barcelona last year. Ungur is yet to better the last-16 here in four tries and hasn't won a single match on the main tour since beating David Nalbandian in the French Open last year.
Florian Mayer could well have one of his increasingly rare good weeks at a venue where he won the title in 2011, but it remains the German's only tour level win and it's hard to recommend him with any confidence on what we've seen from him this season and most of last.
More likely alternative options in a wide open half include Santiago Giraldo, Guillermo Garcia-Lopez and Horacio Zeballos, but anyone could emerge from that top half and I'd rather take a chance on Goffin finding form at around 51.0 than take the 5.5 on Tipsarevic or equally short 17.0 on Mayer.
He's had a poor run, but has the Belgian really gone from being touted as the next big thing to being 51.0 to win a poor ATP 250 event in less than a year?
On all recent form it's a fanciful pick, but then how many went for Tommy Robredo in Casablanca, who won at a nice price? There are enough question marks over the others in the top half to make it worth chancing, as all Goffin needs is a win or two to restore confidence.
The obvious choice in the bottom half is Simon, who's won here three times and is defending again this year, but he was so awful in Monte Carlo that I would prefer the chances of Seppi at around 7.0.
The Italian has a good-looking section of the draw and certainly has the quality to win these kind of events, but he is held by Fognini on their recent meetings and he will probably have to get past his compatriot again, as he failed to do last year here.
This looks a week to avoid the favourites for once and take a chance on some of the bigger priced players and for me Goffin fits the bill as someone who could easily go on a run at a fancy price.
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Keywords: ATP Bucharest, Goffin
Source: Betfair
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