Tennis has begun on the North American hardcourts, however there is still top level clay tennis to be played in Kitzbuhel. Ace is back with his best tennis betting tip for the match-up between Yannick Hanfmann and Gerald Melzer.
ATP Kitzbuhel
Tuesday 8:30pm AEST
It has been a busy week-and-a-half for Gerald Melzer, and at the end of that busy road lies his biggest obstacle of the run in Yannick Hanfmann in the first round in Kitzbuhel.
Melzer was part of one of the longer matches in recent times on tour in the best-of-3 set format, losing to Laurent Lokoli 6-7 6-4 5-7 in 3:53. In impressive fashion, Melzer was able to travel to his home country in Austria for Kitzbuhel Qualifying, took to the court less than 24 hours later, lost the first set, then came back to win both the second and third set 6-2 against Hamad Medjedovic, saving 11/13 break points across the course of the match. He was able to back that up with ANOTHER three set win over Ivan Gakhov 6-3 3-6 6-3 to make his way through to the main draw. Melzer is 12-11 across all tours this year, and is 1-3 against players ranked level or higher than Hanfmann, with one win via retirement and loss through retirement. He claimed a Challenger clay runner-up title, however his wins came against players ranked 270 and higher, and was comprehensively beaten by Ficovich in the final. For mine, I don't see Melzer being quite as strong as current odds suggest, even with him playing at home in Austria.
Hanfmann is another who has had an indifferent 2022, however will have received a confidence boost from his effort in Gstaad last week with a win over Cristian Garin and a loss to Nicolas Jarry in two tiebreak sets without facing a break point. He has always shown ability on clay and his ability to produce his top level on clay at ATP level, however remains plagued by inconsistency. With that being said, I have him a level above Melzer and given I anticipated this to be a 3.5 game handicap for Hanfmann, so I will be taking the -2.5 games available for a unit.
Yannick Hanfmann -2.5 games (1 unit)
$1.85
