Giannessi – Copil

Alessandro Giannessi and Marius Copil will meet in the first round at the ATP 250 event in Metz, played on indoor hard courts.

Alessandro Giannessi is not in good form coming into this tournament, having lost 6 of the last 7 matches he played, his only win coming against a player ranked outside the Top 700 a couple of weeks ago at the Genoa challenger. The Italian has played on clay in the last few weeks, so this will be a change of surfaces for him.

Marius Copil had a good season, finally breaking into the Top 100, but he is not in good form either. The Romanian lost 5 matches in a row, failing to win a single set! His only consolation is that he generally met good players during this bad run, but there were exceptions – most notably his loss last week in the first round of the Istanbul challenger, 2-6 5-7 against Janvier.

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Copil leads the H2H 1-0, but the only meeting was back in 2013 on clay, so that doesn`t say a lot. A matchup analysis is difficult to make, as neither player seems to have a style that could particularly trouble the other. However, the surface will be a key factor, as Giannessi prefers clay, while Copil is at his best on indoor hard courts.

Neither players is in good form, but Copil has two key advantages. His big serve will help him out when his shots aren`t going in, and he is much better suited to play on this surface than Giannessi. He has also played exclusively on hard recently (although not indoor), while Giannessi is switching surfaces, having played on clay lately.

Hard indoor is by far Copil’s favorite surface, he always raises his game on it and had the best results of his career in these conditions. Last year he was 18-5 on the surface, defeating a lot of Top 100 and even Top 50 guys, taking sets from Goffin or Mannarino. He has many points to defend at the end of this season and must step up if he wants to remain in Top 100 by the end of the year.

Copil declined to play Davis Cup for Romania last weekend, stating that this period of the year is too important for him on the tour and that he needs to play tournaments to stay in the Top 100. That tells you he will be fully focused and motivated for this clash.

As long as Copil doesn`t have a complete stinker here, he should win this match rather comfortably. My tip will be Copil to cover a -3 (asian) game handicap, but I will keep the stakes reasonable, as his poor form must be taken into account. The -3 handicap is available at about 20 bookies, but if you can only find the -3.5, I wouldn`t stake more than 5 units on that one – as Copil relies a lot on serve and a tiebreak is possible. Prediction: Alessandro Giannessi – Marius Copil 2-6 6-7.

Pick: Copil -3 game handicap
Odds: 1.83 @ 18Bet
Stake: 7
Possible profit: 5.81
Event date: 18 September