Fritz – Copil

Taylor Fritz and Marius Copil will square off on Friday with a place in the Basel semifinals on the line, a result which would be a huge one for both players.

The 57th ranked Fritz had a busy and successful year, playing and winning a lot of matches in 2018. Many of them were at challenger level, but he got plenty of results at ATP level as well, including two semifinals (Houston, Chengdu). The American is riding a good patch of form and claimed two straight set wins here in Basel against Djere (6-0 7-5) and Laaksonen (6-2 7-5).

Marius Copil (93 ATP) is having his second best tournament of the year so far here in Basel (previously played a final in Sofia back in February). The Romanian, an expert on indoor hard courts, got past qualifying (M. Zverev, Lajovic) before defeating Ryan Harrison and Marin Cilic to reach this quarterfinal. Copil has not yet lost a set in his four matches and his win against Cilic two days ago was particularly remarkable.

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This will be the first meeting between the two players. Fritz is a more versatile player, while Copil is a big server with flat and powerful strokes.

Copil is an indoor hard expert. He has a 147-80 record under the roof, which is by far his best win/loss ratio on any surface, and the end of the season with all the indoor hard tournaments is always his best time of the year. Once he gets going and finds an error-free rhythm in an indoor hard tournament he is pretty hard to stop, as his big serve and flat strokes are devastating in these conditions.

This has been the case in this tournament, with Copil playing very well in all his matches, since qualifying until his win against Cilic in the previous round. That 7-5 7-6 victory over the Croatian was really impressive because Cilic was actually at a very good level. Of course, Marin wasn`t quite at his best (at his best he`d almost never lose against a player outside the Top 50), but he played solid and didn`t gift Copil the win. Instead, the Romanian earned it and took it by playing great tennis from start to finish, being steady and also being aggressive at the right moments.

Fritz is playing well himself, but nothing special. He claimed two relatively easy wins this week but the opposition was extremely poor in the form of Djere and Laaksonen. Against Laaksonen he was very close to losing the second set, needing a late comeback and a choke from Laaksonen to avoid a decider.

I was expecting Copil to be around a 1.70 – 1.75 favorite here, and probably even that would have been a bit on the high side and worth taking. If the Romanian repeats the performance he had against Cilic, he should be able to claim a massive win and record one of the best performances of his career.

It seems unlikely for Copil to dip his level considering that he has been steady for 4 matches in a row, so my tip here will be Copil to win. Note that odds on the Romanian are dropping fast. Prediction: Taylor Fritz – Marius Copil 4-6 6-7.

Pick: Copil
Odds: 1.91 @ Betfair Sportsbook
Stake: 8
Possible profit: 7.28
Event date: 26 October