Melzer – Karlovic

Ivo Karlovic will take on the old master and home favorite Jurgen Melzer in the second round at the ATP Vienna event. This betting preview will feature some interesting circumstances as you will see below in the analysis.

Melzer was not too impressive in the first round, needing three sets to defeat a rather mediocre Gombos, but what counts is that he completed the job. Melzer has dropped out of the top 100 this season and clearly his best days are behind him – he`s living off of some random results a couple of times a year, when he manages to get his act together and display some of the tennis that brought him so much success. In 2014 he reached the semifinals at Hertogenbosch, defeating Verdasco, and some other highlights include wins over Isner, Cilic and Janowicz. Lately Melzer was in even worse form than usual, he lost 8 consecutive matches before beating Roger Vasselin via retirement in Tokyo (lost to Raonic) – I`m excluding his 2 victories against Latvia (without Gulbis) in Davis Cup, the opponents were too poor. Dreadful tennis by Melzer and the win against Gombos was basically his only clean win since June.

Karlovic needed three tiebreaks to overcome Delbonis in the first round here at Vienna but Big Ivo eventually prevailed and he has to fancy his chances against this out of shape Melzer, even in Austria. Karlovic had a great season so far in 2014 and his short term form is pretty good as well – Ivo reached the 3rd round at the Shanghai Masters, defeating Cilic and losing to a red hot Tomas Berdych.

Bet on Jurgen Melzer vs. Ivo Karlovic at ATP Vienna with the best odds offered by Pinnacle.

The H2H is 4-1 for Melzer (3-1 on hard) and trust me when I say that this is not random at all. The matchup analysis is key here – Melzer is an absolute beast against big servers, he can read their big serves like nobody else on tour, maybe except from Federer. The only big server he could never figure out was Roddick (0-10 H2H). I remember tipping Jurgen a couple of years back in a final against Raonic based solely on this argument, he had odds over 4.00 and he won it! Just look at the above mentioned highlight wins for Melzer this season: Isner (3-1 H2H), Cilic, Janowicz – all big servers. Karlovic did win the lastest meeting however at the 2012 Australian Open.

I bet many people were shocked when the odds came out with Karlovic as high as 1.80 and the price on the Croatian is dropping like crazy, but the bookies knew what they were doing. Even in his worst form, Melzer is virtually transforming when he`s meeting big servers. He did lose to Raonic in his last tournament, but Milos is already at a totally different level. This should be a tight match, Karlovic is playing well, but considering the H2H analysis and the fact that Ivo was shaky himself against Delbonis, I will bet on Melzer to produce the upset. Home court advantage could also help the Austrian, after all he did win the Vienna title twice.

I expect both guys to hold serve and Melzer to edge the tiebreak(s), as Big Ivo is weaker in breakers than he should be and Melzer will surely gain at least 1-2 minibreaks the way he is reading his serve. At least a break for Melzer should also happen at some point. A first set tiebreak is also a real possibility, but I`m actually scared of Melzer reading Ivo`s serve right from the off. Don`t get me wrong, this is not a sure bet (nothing is), but there`s value all over the place as seemingly every punter is missing the H2H factor and Melzer`s skill against big servers. My tip is Melzer to win. Prediction: Jurgen Melzer – Ivo Karlovic 7-6 6-4.

Pick: Melzer
Odds: 2.37 @ Pinnacle
Stake: 8
Possible profit: 10.96
Event date: 15 October