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Tenth seed Santiago Giraldo takes on Benjamin Becker in the second round at Washington. We should see some good tennis between two good players
Giraldo had a bye in the first round, which means this will be his first match on hard courts since March. The Colombian has been dreadful in the few matches he played hard this season, posting a 2-5 win loss record and only defeating clay courters like Albert Montanes and Daniel Gimeno Traver. Overall Santiago is in a good moment in his career, he had very good results on the European clay, but hard courts do not suit his game at all and his short term form is not impressive either. He`s not a complete mug on this surface, but he does not fancy it either and this year he played worse than ever on hard.
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Bet with the best odds and highest limits at Pinnacle. |
Becker put on a great performance last week in Atlanta, destroying his opponents in route to reaching the semifinals, where he lost in 3 sets to an in-form Dudi Sela. Becker had an OK season by his standards and seems to be playing his best tennis right now, he was extremely sharp in Atlanta and his serve is working at a great level – he conceded just 4 breaks in 4 matches last week. Becker got past an in-form Kavic in the first round here at Washington in 2 sets.
The H2H is 2-0 for Giraldo and surprisingly both wins came on hard courts, but the last match between these two was played in 2011. Maybe Santiago has a small matchup advantage given this H2H, but even so, on the American hard courts Becker has to be the one who has the edge.
It`s the second time in a row that Becker has unreasonably high odds this week, it also happened against Kavcic and it resulted in a rather comfortable win for the German. Giraldo might be the slightly better all-around tennis player, but the surface in Washington clearly turns the tables in Becker’s favor. He is also in much better form and has a couple of solid hard court matches under his belt, while Giraldo will play his first game on the surface after a very long time. I can see Becker controlling this one with his powerful serve and he should be able to prevail against a Giraldo that will inevitably be a little rusty. My tip is Becker to win. I`m confident in this pick, the odds are dropping, so I will go with high stakes on this one. Prediction: Santiago Giraldo – Benjamin Becker 6-7 4-6.
Pick: Becker
Odds: 1.85 @ Pinnacle
Stake: 9
Possible profit: 7.65
Event date: 30 July
