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Horse Racing Tuesday's Tennis Best Bet: March 15th
WTA Indian Wells: Cirstea vs Halep Best Bet
Tuesday, 15th March, 18:00 (UK Time)
The Indian Wells Masters is now into its second week, with the Women’s side of the draw at the fourth round stage. Simona Halep is currently one of the favourites to win the tournament, and her next match against fellow Romanian Sorana Cirstea is where my best bet comes from.
Halep delivered a much-improved display against Coco Gauff in the early hours of Monday morning, after a slightly unconvincing three-set victory over Ekaterina Alexandrova in her second round match.
Despite the windy conditions in California, Halep’s exceptional first-serve percentage of 77% helped limit her dangerous American opponent to just four break-point opportunities. This level of consistency on serve is something her fourth round opponent, Cirstea, is yet to produce at this tournament.
Cirstea tends to go for broke on her first serve, which is why she usually wins a lot of points behind this weapon – 76% in round 2 and 78% in round 3. However, due to the higher level of risk, her first-serve percentage has been under 50% in both matches.
This figure will be a slight concern for Cirstea and her team, particularly because Halep was also very effective in her return game against Gauff, where she won 80% of points off the American’s second serve. Therefore, the consistency of Cirstea’s first serve looks to be crucial in determining the competitiveness of this matchup.
With the wind appearing to be less prominent in Indian Wells on Tuesday, I’m backing Cirstea to find her first serve on a more frequent basis. This should lead to a more competitive encounter than the 1.25 average match market price suggests.
In addition, when priced as the ‘underdog’ so far in 2022, 63% (5/8) of Cirstea’s matches have crossed the 20.5 game mark, which offers further encouragement to back the overs at prices above even money.
- Selection: Over 20.5 games
- Best Odds: 2.04 (Unibet)
- Stakes: 5/10
Odds as at 2am March 15th 2022. Odds may now differ
