The ATP Miami Open begins on Wednesday as the first round of the competition begins and it does so with quite a competitive day of action on a wide number of courts as the second Masters 1000 event of the season gets up and running.
With the big three all missing this tournament and one or two of the higher ranked players who are here appearing under a bit of a form cloud everyone on show on Wednesday will be eager to win and give themselves a chance of a big run.
Stadium
As ever the Grandstand court at this complex is inside the Hard Rock Stadium itself and on Wednesday it will stage three matches in total. It is the women who get the schedule up and running but when they are done the home man Mackenzie McDonald will be on show. He will take on Dominik Koepfer before David Goffin gets to play on a big court once again. He will look to find some form when he takes on the Spanish player Roberto Carballes Baena. The other men’s match comes in the night session as Nick Kyrgios will look to build on his run to the quarter final in Indian Wells when he opens up his campaign against Adrian Mannarino.
Grandstand
The second court in this part of Miami is the Grandstand court and it has two men’s matches which open up the day and finish the schedule off. The opener on this court should be nice and competitive as the Korea player Soonwoo Kwon meets the home player Brandon Nakashima who will be motivated to pick up a win. There are then three women’s matches being played before the last men’s match. That sees another home player in Maxime Cressy going up against Emil Ruusuvuori for the right to have a crack at the 2021 finalist Jannik Sinner in the next round.
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Best of the Rest
There is only one match on the other main court this week which is the Butch Buchholz court. That comes in the night session when Thanasi Kokkinakis will take on Richard Gasquet. The rest of the action is reduced to two outside courts and if you are on site or have the ability to stream these courts then you’ll be able to see the rising British star Jack Draper, Gilles Simon, Benoit Paire, Fernando Verdasco, Denis Kudla and Dusan Lajovic among others.
Betting
There were a couple of bets which would have tempted me in had the price been a little better but unfortunately Jack Draper and Thanasi Kokkinakis are warm favourites. I’m still tempted by Fernando Verdasco to beat Borna Coric but again the price is only about right. One price which could be a little shorter though is the 5/6 on Henri Laaksonen to beat Benoit Paire. On the face of it the form of these two is as poor as each other so it could be that the decisive factor is their head to head record.
The Swiss player leads that 3-0 and two of those meetings have been in the last five months so they are relevant enough to be important. Paire is capable of brilliance but the longer he is out on the court the more his brain seems to frazzle and I’m sure that won’t be lost on Laaksonen who will be eyeing up a key win here. He’ll know if he can keep Paire out in the heat and push him to a third set if needs be then he could very well have his man. Paire in all has one win in his last eight matches and that came in a Challenger last week against the world number 312. Laaksonen only needs to stand up and be competitive early doors to come through here.
Tips
WON – Back H.Laaksonen to beat B.Paire for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with BetVictor
Back him here:
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