ATP: Maric Cilic- Jo Wilfried Tsonga
I love JWT who is always great fun to watch and he is my youngest daughter's favourite player by far, but I cannot really agree with him being such a short priced favourite today. The French star has never made it beyond the quarters in seven attempts at the US Open and he has underperformed time and time again in slams, at least in relation to his ability and come up short far too often against fellow top ranked players. Since making his one slam final back in 2008, he has failed to go beyond R4 14 times, made ten quarters, where he is 5-5 and is 0-5 in semis, that is not a "bad" record and many tennis players would snatch your hand off for it, but he should have done much better and a two week tournament is more often than not 4-5 days too long for him ! He is 35-68 through his career versus top 10 ranked players and just 50% against those ranked 6-10 which is his peer group, he has a 33% win rate against top 20 players here and at Wimbledon. Against taller players like Cilic, that record is far worse, he is 15-33 through his career versus taller top 20 ranked players, 7-27 versus the top ten and 2-11 in the last three years. Remember that last group doesn't include Djokovic,Federer or Rafa, so is again, very much his peer group.
Cilic is defending champion in NY and has a lot of ranking points to defend, he lost the first few months of this season with a shoulder injury, but looks to be coming back to his best now and repeated his quarter final run at Wimbledon from last year and has since played at a similar level in build up events through the hard court season. It was at the quarter final stage last year when he beat Tomas Berdych that he stepped up a level and he must have a better than 42% chance of winning today, but don't tell my daughter !
Marin Cilic to beat Jo Wilfried Tsonga 2.36 Pinnacle Sports/ Sportmarket Pro.
I love JWT who is always great fun to watch and he is my youngest daughter's favourite player by far, but I cannot really agree with him being such a short priced favourite today. The French star has never made it beyond the quarters in seven attempts at the US Open and he has underperformed time and time again in slams, at least in relation to his ability and come up short far too often against fellow top ranked players. Since making his one slam final back in 2008, he has failed to go beyond R4 14 times, made ten quarters, where he is 5-5 and is 0-5 in semis, that is not a "bad" record and many tennis players would snatch your hand off for it, but he should have done much better and a two week tournament is more often than not 4-5 days too long for him ! He is 35-68 through his career versus top 10 ranked players and just 50% against those ranked 6-10 which is his peer group, he has a 33% win rate against top 20 players here and at Wimbledon. Against taller players like Cilic, that record is far worse, he is 15-33 through his career versus taller top 20 ranked players, 7-27 versus the top ten and 2-11 in the last three years. Remember that last group doesn't include Djokovic,Federer or Rafa, so is again, very much his peer group.
Cilic is defending champion in NY and has a lot of ranking points to defend, he lost the first few months of this season with a shoulder injury, but looks to be coming back to his best now and repeated his quarter final run at Wimbledon from last year and has since played at a similar level in build up events through the hard court season. It was at the quarter final stage last year when he beat Tomas Berdych that he stepped up a level and he must have a better than 42% chance of winning today, but don't tell my daughter !
Marin Cilic to beat Jo Wilfried Tsonga 2.36 Pinnacle Sports/ Sportmarket Pro.
