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Mixed martial arts Monday Tennis Best Bet: ATP Monte Carlo, Mackenzie McDonald vs Ivan Gakhov
Mackenzie McDonald vs Ivan Gakhov Best Bet: Monday, April 10th
An absolute no-show from Andrea Vavassori, who was putrid on return against someone that shouldn’t be rolling through service games that easily on a clay court.
We’re into a new week, and the Monte Carlo Masters take centre stage (there are also several Challenger events, in case the value isn’t there some days from Monaco). For Monday, let’s break down the match between Mackenzie McDonald and Ivan Gakhov.
In this article:
Mackenzie McDonald vs Ivan Gakhov Preview
April 10th, 11:30 (UK Time)
After a perplexing, but successful, clay-court season in 2021, McDonald’s performance on the slow red stuff came back to earth in 2022, as the American ended up losing more matches than he won.
His four wins also came against Challenger Tour level competition for the most part, and even then, he dealt with a lot of pushback from the likes of Franco Agamenone and Hugo Grenier.
That’s worth noting because Ivan Gakhov is another player who has spent a lot of time grinding away on the Challenger circuit to earn the opportunity to qualify for this tournament.
The lefty plays a spin-heavy game from the forehand wing and can change pace and place his serve very well. He’s had trouble in the past with allegations of poor motivation and potentially tanking matches when things weren’t going his way, but he finally appears as though he’s turned a corner so far in 2023.
It didn’t begin that way, with the 26-year-old winning just two of his first nine matches, but since then he’s won a Challenger event in Girona on the dirt, made the quarterfinal in Las Franquesas del Valles on hard courts and lost an incredibly tight affair in the second round in Murcia this past week in the second round (he won more games than he lost and both sets dropped were in tiebreaks).
With comfort on clay, more spin to his game and far more clay-court matches under his belt this season, I feel like he has the pedigree to keep things much closer against McDonald than the current odds would indicate.
I understand as a player on the whole he isn’t quite on McDonald’s level, but on clay, with the American yet to play on the surface this year, Gakhov’s his recent form and the fact that he qualified over the past few days, I think the Russian has a good chance at pulling off the upset.
Mackenzie McDonald vs Ivan Gakhov Best Bet
The value backing Gakhov here is that these two have competed in different spheres for quite some time.
That makes it tough to assess just how much better McDonald is on clay than the Russian.
McDonald’s worst surface is the red dirt, but his losses still come at the ATP Tour level. Gakhov may be decent on clay and in form, but he’s yet to prove himself at this level and against someone of McDonald’s quality.
That said, with McDonald not possessing as much topspin to his game, not having played yet on the dirt in 2023 and Gakhov entering with confidence and with two wins under his belt from qualifying, I’m happy to back him at nice underdog odds that have only gotten better since the market for this match opened up.
- Selection: Gakhov to win
- Best Odds: 2.53 (Pinnacle)
- Stakes: 2/10
Odds as at 3:30 am on April 10th, 2023. Odds may now differ.
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