tennis | Tuesday, October 18, 2022 8:12 AM

Tuesday Tennis Best Bet: ATP Stockholm, Alexander Shevchenko vs Antoine Bellier

Jon Reid

Alexander Shevchenko vs Antoine Bellier Best Bet: Tuesday, October 18th

A nice win to start the week as we had hoped. Jack Draper comes through as a small underdog on a 4/10 stakes play in dominant fashion. Worth a reminder, in the overall range of outcomes in that event, 6-1, 6-2 is still a rare scoreline. That said, happy it went our way and onto Tuesday!

For the second men’s tip of the week, it’s over to the Swedish capital and the match between Alexander Shevchenko and Antoine Bellier at the Stockholm Open.

In this article:

Alexander Shevchenko vs Antoine Bellier Preview
Alexander Shevchenko vs Antoine Bellier Best Bet

Alexander Shevchenko vs Antoine Bellier Preview

October 18th, 12:00 UK Time

Fun match here between two players that many fans who only watch the top level of the ATP Tour may not know that well.

A pair of players typically found at the Challenger level that came through qualies will square off here in a great opportunity to reach the second round of a tour-level tournament.

Let me first start by saying, I appreciate the big-serving Swiss, as over the weekend I backed him in some capacity against both of his qualifying round opponents, and managed to make money doing so both times.

That said, this is not a matchup he thrives in the vast majority of the time. There are a few things that are keeping this pricing closer than it should be, which we’ll outline in the next section.

As for the actual matchup, Bellier is a very straightforward kind of player. He employs the old-school serve-and-volley technique a lot in his service games, and one can understand why. He’s tall and has a big lefty serve, but other than that, he really struggles to stick around in longer rallies. His one-handed backhand is a glaring weakness, and even his backhand slice is far from being effective and sits up too often. For someone of his size and with such a big serve, his forehand is far too weak and lacks consistency.

This leads me to believe the serve-and-volley tactic is as much about necessity as it is about effectiveness.

Finally, his play at net? Not even that great for someone who’s game heavily relies on volleying. There’s simply a lot to exploit for his opponents. That’s something they’ve done relatively well of late. Outside of his wins against an downright awful Mikhail Kukushkin (his 2022 season has been one to forget, to say the least) and Karl Friberg – an ITF player ranked outside the world’s top-400 who was in the qualifying draw by virtue of his nationality getting him a wild card – Bellier had lost four consecutive matches indoors and was 4-7 on the year prior to his qualifying wins.

As for the Russian, Shevchenko has come up on clay courts (more on why that may help him against a serve and volleyer later), but has done a fantastic job adding to his game in terms of speed on serve, a bit more power from the baseline and a more aggressive mindset on court in 2022.

That has allowed him to find some more success on hard courts than many would probably think, and because the improved play is still relatively recent, it allows us to try and back him before much of the tennis world – and thus betting markets – pick up on it.

With a poor returner on the other side of the net and an improved service game, the 21-year-old should really fancy his chances to come through this one.

Alexander Shevchenko vs Antoine Bellier Best Bet

I’m not sure how much longer we’ll see Shevchenko in a buy-low spot like this against a relatively one-dimensional player, but I’ll be looking to take advantage in this one.

The market is clearly pricing in the rather quick indoor conditions in a big way here, and giving Bellier a fair amount of credit for his big serve and unorthodox serve-and-volley style.

With Shevchenko’s vastly improved serve and added pace from the baseline this season, combined with Bellier’s unimpressive play in the final round of qualies against someone that had very little to offer on serve or on return by my estimation watching the match and Shevchenko’s natural clay background that should assist him in finding passing shots when Bellier comes to the net, I have this one at an expensive -3.5 games, rather than the standard pricing at -2.5 we’re seeing.

With half games being more important on quicker courts, as opposed to slower courts like clay, that is a big enough discrepancy for me to raise my stakes on this one.