Monte Carlo Rolex Masters Betting: All-Italian clash between Fognini and Seppi set to go long

15Apr 2013

ATP Masters 1000

The first round matches in the Monte-Carlo Rolex Masters continue today and Sean Calvert sifts through the best bets on offer on day two in Monaco...

Sunday at the 2013 Monte-Carlo Rolex Masters yielded one winner from two bets on the opening day of this Masters 1000 tournament.

Guillaume Rufin was disappointing in his loss to Pablo Andujar, but Daniel Brands got the job done by beating Thiemo de Bakker in three sets.

Monday's schedule in Monaco sees the likes of Milos Raonic and Gilles Simon make their tournament debuts, but neither are at backable prices on a day where there are several very tricky matches to predict taking place.

Clashes such as Andujar vs Jeremy Chardy, Robin Haase vs Edouard Roger-Vasselin, Jarkko Nieminen vs Viktor Troicki, and Mikhail Youzhny vs Daniel Gimeno Traver are horrible-looking matches to be getting involved in and my best bet today is for the all-Italian clash between Fabio Fognini and Andreas Seppi to be a long, drawn out affair.

The top two Italian male players will be facing off for the seventh time at tour level, with Seppi leading the series 4-2, but Fognini has won the most recent two, the latest one coming on clay in Bucharest last year.

Seppi has played just the two matches on clay this year and struggled in both in Davis Cup, where he sneaked past Ivan Dodig before being comprehensively beaten by Marin Cilic and he's playing his first clay match on the tour this year. It will actually be the first ATP Tour match he's played on the dirt since taking Novak Djokovic to five sets at Roland Garros in the summer.

Fognini did pretty well on the Golden Swing in South America, reaching the semi finals in Acapulco, beating Stan Wawrinka and losing twice on that swing to David Ferrer and he took a set from Ferrer in the Acapulco semi.

Both players took last week off following a long and ultimately fruitless trip to Canada in Davis Cup and they are well matched on this surface as I think today will show.

The value in the match odds betting lies with Fognini at 2.32, but this one looks set to go to a decider, so in a match that I have at not far off even money the play is to take the over 21.5 total games at around 1.80.