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Dusan Lajovic will take on Ivo Karlovic in the second round at ATP Istanbul, with Big Ivo incredibly still looking for his first win in 2016, as he had a bye in the first round here.
Lajovic defeated Olivo in the first round at Istanbul, but Dusan was not particularly impressive in his 7-5 6-4 victory. In fact, Lajovic, who had a good start of the season, has not played well at all in the last month, defeating just Olivo and Novikov in his last 6 matches. The Serbian player came to Istanbul on the back of a first round loss against Pouille in Bucharest.
Injuries and poor play have made this a catastrophic season for Karlovic, who has failed to win a single match in 2016, posting a 0-6 win loss record. After not playing for about six weeks, Karlovic came back right when the European clay court season started, losing both of his matches against Joao Souza (Monte Carlo) and Lucas Pouille (Bucharest). Big Ivo is now healthy, he has a couple of matches under his belt on clay and he`s expected to improve. In fact, he already played a good game against eventual finalist Pouille in Bucharest, showing some of his old magic at times.
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Ivo Karlovic leads the H2H 4-0 (1-0 on clay), losing a single set to Lajovic in the last 4 meetings. It seems to be a very one sided matchup and Lajovic definitely has problems against Ivo’s serve. True, Karlovic is / was a much better player over the years, so it`s normal for him to be leading the H2H, but 8-1 in sets with just 3 tiebreaks played seems an unreasonably high difference.
Karlovic is obviously not at his best right now and clay is definitely his worst surface, but Big Ivo will start winning matches at some point and this might be a very good opportunity for him. He now has matches under his belt, he already played two tournaments on clay in the last 2 weeks and he showed some improvement last week in Bucharest. Actually, with both Lajovic and Karlovic losing against Pouille last week, it`s fair to say that Big Ivo put up more of a fight against the Frenchman.
The game handicap line seems really high here. Even on clay, Karlovic’s serve is still a huge weapon, no matter how poor he`s playing. He reached a tiebreak in both of his recent matches on clay, both ending 3-6 6-7 and both against better players then Lajovic.
I expect an improvement from Karlovic here, but even if he doesn`t show progress, his serve should still keep him close. Lajovic is not a special player and it`s unlikely that he will be able to get too many break point opportunities against Ivo – especially looking at the H2H, which suggests he doesn`t know how to play against the big serving Croat.
All in all, my tip is over 22,5 games to be played. I was initially thinking Karlovic +3 game handicap, but after additional thought I just can`t see him beating Lajovic in two clear sets on clay, not in his current form. If we exclude this possibility, a bet on over 22,5 games makes much more sense and has better odds as well. 7-6 6-3 for Lajovic seems to be the risk element here, but I don`t think he will pull off such a result and you can`t bet without risk. Prediction: Dusan Lajovic – Ivo Karlovic 7-6 6-7 6-3.
Pick: over 22,5 games
Odds: 1.75 @ Unibet
Stake: 8
Possible profit: 6
Event date: 28 April
