French Open Day 5 (Thur)

What a terrific start to the French Open, with nine winners from ten bets over the first couple of rounds.

Things do get harder as we progress deeper into the tournament though, as better known players are inevitably easier to price up for the bookies.

Ivo Karlovic was our pick against Feliciano Lopez in the first round, and he looks worth backing again when he faces American Jordan Thompson. The big serving Croat has won each of their two meetings previously - once last season indoors, and at this venue in 2016, where Karlovic edged past 12-10 in the final set.

Karlovic is not a clay courter of course, but his freakish serve always hands him a chance and ensures that the match will be light on breaks. Lopez only say 6 break points in four long sets, so they are very much a rarity.

Thompson is more at home on clay, but is by no means a specialist. He reached the final of the Nanchang Challenger last week but the opposition wasn't much in fairness.

Thompson has only played two clay matches over the past two years against Top 100 opponents, winning 52.1% of service points and 32.9% of receiving points. Not a good effort at all (combined 85.0%). Karlovic has record a service record of 72.1% and return rate of 25.5% - combining to 97.6%.

He is on the wane but at 6/4 looks excellent value in a match which could hang on fine margins either way.

2pts Karlovic to beat Thompson at 6/4 (General)

Another man we supporting in Round One was Kyle Edmund. It's always nice to support a home player, but the data has to stack up, and we believe it does when he takes on Pablo Cuevas.

Edmund is up to 30th in the world now, and while he is a multi-surface player his 131-60 record on clay is not shabby at all. He's played 40% of his career matches on the dirt, winning 68% of those. It would be remiss of us not to mention that he suffered five defeats in the run up to this event, but his rivals included Tsonga, Schwartzman and Fognini.

Cuevas is a clay specialist - playing 640 matches on the surface and winning 66% of those. Plenty have come on more modest stages than this though, and all the comparable data over the past couple of years suggests there shouldn't be too much between these two.

1pt Edmund to beat Cuevas at 11/8 (General)

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