Mixed martial arts Wednesday Tennis Best Bet: ATP Challenger Andria, Stuart Parker vs Michael Geerts
Stuart Parker vs Michael Geerts Best Bet: Wednesday, November 23rd
Another tough loss on Tuesday from the men’s events, as Riccardo Bonadio fell in the third set against Oleksii Krutykh.
For Wednesday’s written preview, we’ll head back to the indoor hard court event in Andria, Italy and look at the match between Stuart Parker and Michael Geerts.
In this article:
Stuart Parker vs Michael Geerts Preview
November 23rd, 10:30 UK Time
This appears to be a case of the wrong player being favoured. Outside of Geerts coming off a tough travel spot from playing in North America last week (though he’s now had three days to travel, rest and get over any potential jet lag associated with making the North America to Europe trip), it’s tough to see why Parker would be afforded the title of favourite in this one.
Perhaps the market is looking at the record on indoor courts this season of each of these two. Considering this will be Parker’s first match in a Challenger main draw of the season on indoor hard courts, and Geerts has lost to the likes of Quentin Halys, Dominic Thiem and Corentin Moutet indoors (all three of those guys are ATP Tour level players in 2022 on this surface), I don’t put much stock into that line of thought.
Perhaps it’s the form entering this event that has the market favouring the 25-year-old Brit? That wouldn’t make much sense either, as Parker failed to reach the main draw of the last Challenger event he played, and lost to a clay courter in the opening round of the Challenger he played prior to that. Geerts, meanwhile, reached the semifinals in Drummondville just last week, winning his third match as a substantial underdog.
Finally, the matchup doesn’t particularly favour the younger of the two either. His second serve is attackable, his first serve isn’t nearly enough to make up for that fact and he doesn’t have a noteworthy weapon from the baseline to hit through the strong defensive abilities of the Belgian.
Stuart Parker vs Michael Geerts Best Bet
As we look for reasons that we may see the pricing off in the betting markets, I’d point to the statistical angle in this one.
Parker’s hold of serve percentage, as well as break of serve rate seem rather impressive. The only issue? The lack of play at this level and the fact that the vast majority of his success came at the Nonthaburi Challenger that he won in early September.
Without trying to take away that accomplishment from the Brit, it’s tough to look at an event in a part of the world that typically draws weaker fields and that only awarded 50 ranking points to the winner (another aspect that likely kept the quality of competition down) and really allow the stats accrued that week to influence matches on hard courts at the Challenger level moving forward.
It appears as though that’s what has happened here, since Geerts should in no way be the underdog in this match. I’m content with opening a position on the Geerts to win market, as I have him as the favourite here against Parker.
- Selection: Geerts to win
- Best Odds: 2.01 (Pinnacle)
- Stakes: 3/10
Odds as at 3:00 am on November 23rd, 2022. Odds may now differ.
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