Marc Polmans vs Matteo Martineau Prediction, Picks, Odds, H2H, August 20th

Our second preview from the US Open comes from the Marc Polmans vs Matteo Martineau match for a spot in the second round.

Martineau’s win probability is only about 40%, while Polmans is favoured to win at 1.58 odds. The handicap is 2.5 games and the total games line is 22.5.

For more daily tennis tips, visit the bettingexpert community, but if you want more expert tips from Jon Reid, visit our Expert Insights section.

Our Polmans vs Martineau prediction is for Martineau to win.

Marc Polmans vs Matteo Martineau Prediction: Better Player Incredibly Undervalued on Tuesday

• Prediction: Martineau to win
• Best Odds: 2.42
• Bookmaker: Pinnacle
• Stakes: 4/10

Odds updated at 4:45 am UK Time on August th, 2024. 

I have no earthly idea why Polmans would be a favourite in this matchup. Perhaps the quantitative market makers have some numbers that prefer Polmans, but from a more context-oriented viewpoint, I love Martineau in this spot.

Perhaps his recent poor form on clay courts is giving us a steep discount odds wise here, and if that’s the case, I’m happy to take it.

Polmans has played 10 tournaments on hard courts and grass courts since the French Open. He’s won a total of five matches. His rally tolerance is almost non-existence, and he’s not a player with booming weapons to blow someone off the court when he does hit his spots.

Martineau may not be playing great tennis at the moment, but he’s had plenty of success on hard courts this season, has a game well suited to the surface and his most recent matches on quicker courts (on grass) were by no means disappointing.

Some people may be nervous about backing an underdog with larger stakes, but I’m going to go ahead and do it in this spot. I hate betting on Martineau on clay, but on any other surface as an underdog, he can keep things close. Against an out-of-form player that he has a bigger game than? He’s got a great shot to pull off the “upset.”

Marc Polmans Recent Form

Not only is Polmans 12-21 for the year, but we’re now four months removed from the last time that he won two main draw matches at a tournament. The only times he’s done that this season? At the Challenger level.

I’m not sure what else has gone wrong for the Aussie, but his serve has only been decent and his rally tolerance has gone AWOL.

The five wins in 10 events I mentioned? One came against Thai Son Kwiatkowski, who appears to have retired, unless he was pulling a social media prank, two came against Alexis Galarneau, who has had a decent 2024, but has been awful since June and is fairly underpowered to boot and then a fourth came against a player I haven’t even heard of and is ranked outside of the top-1000.

So it’s not like he has any impressive wins of late either. With so many Challenger losses on the resume, we also can’t say he’s just been running into a lot of great players early in tournaments either.

Matteo Martineau Recent Form

The five match losing skid Martineau is on has to be playing an outsized role in why we’re seeing him as such a heavy underdog. My issue with that, though, is that two of those losses were by fairly close margins to decent players on grass and the other three were on clay courts.

I’ve been saying all season Martineau is destined for success on hard courts, but the flatter hitting, the power, the serve and the ability to come to net are all going to struggle on clay. He found a wee bit of success at a Challenger in France a few months back, but other than that, that analysis has panned out.

In other words, I’m not holding three clay losses against him. I’m also not going to bother thinking about non professional club tennis like the Bundesliga.

I’m going to focus on his strengths, the fact his opponent has been just as bad and the fact that earlier this year on hard courts, Martineau was racking up wins on hard courts (albeit indoor hard courts).

Marc Polmans vs Matteo Martineau H2H – Stat of the Match

These two have only played once. All the way back in 2021 on clay courts, the Frenchman emerged victorious. Now that’s not much to go on since the match took place so long ago and on a totally different surface.

Safer Gambling

At bettingexpert, we always take a safe approach to gambling. We’ll never bet more than we can afford or chase losses. For more advice, head to our Safer Gambling hub.