Tennis Picks Today For January 24th Free Tennis Picks for Brandon Nakashima vs Benjamin Hassan and Maxime Cressy vs Geoffrey Blancaneaux
Tennis Picks Today: January 24th
- Nakashima vs Hassan: Over 22 Games
- Cressy vs Blancaneaux: Blancaneaux to win
With matches running out down under at the Australian Open, let’s look to the ATP Challenger Tour for our previews for Wednesday.
We have four Challengers going this week, including a pair of more prominent ones in Europe. Let’s take a look at Brandon Nakashima vs Benjamin Hassan from the BW Open in Belgium and Maxime Cressy vs Geoffrey Blancaneaux from the Open Quimper Bretagne Occidentale.
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In this article:
- Brandon Nakashima vs Benjamin Hassan Expert Tip
- Brandon Nakashima Recent Form
- Benjamin Hassan Recent Form
- Brandon Nakashima vs Benjamin Hassan H2H Stat of the Match
- Maxime Cressy vs Geoffrey Blancaneaux Expert Tip
- Maxime Cressy Recent Form
- Geoffrey Blancaneaux Recent Form
- Maxime Cressy vs Geoffrey Blancaneaux H2H Stat of the Match
- Safer Gambling
Brandon Nakashima vs Benjamin Hassan (BW Open) Free Pick: Hassan to Keep Nakashima Close
- Pick: Over 22 Games
- Best Odds: 2.04
- Bookmaker: Pinnacle
- Stakes: 2/10
Odds as at 2:15 am UK Time on January 24th, 2023. Odds may now differ.
It’s been fairly successful as well, with a few deep runs, including a title last week in Tenerife. The quick courts may suit his flatter hitting style, but I’m also sceptical that his return game is strong enough in quicker conditions and against a decent server to find the breaks of serve necessary to end things in quick order.
Read on for more expert insights.
Brandon Nakashima Recent Form
As mentioned above, Nakashima is coming off a nice title run in Tenerife a week ago, which backed up a nice run to the Canberra Challenger semifinals at the beginning of the month.
His only losses on the season have come against one of the best young talents in the game in Jakub Mensik, and even then, they were both close two-set losses. The one knock on him though, is his return game. Against decent servers this season, he’s played a lot of close sets, with routine wins coming against somewhat underpowered opposition in Tristan Schoolkate and Dino Prizmic.
With the conditions speeding up from Tenerife to Ottignies-Louvain-La-Leuve, and potential fatigue coming into play after a long week, I do believe that breaks of serve might be that much tougher to come by.
He should certainly be a favourite, but I’m not convinced that he’s going to run away with the win in this spot.
Benjamin Hassan Recent Form
Hassan’s start to the year has been a bit more hot-and-cold. From a positive perspective, he crushed Jan Choinski and beat a decent quick-court player in Billy Harris. Even his loss to Mensik was fairly competitive in Canberra.
On the flip side, a seven-game loss to Seongchan Hong is a bit disconcerting.
That loss did skew his hold rate a bit, though, and that leads me to believe that those pricing this match up whether it be who wins, the total games or the handicap markets with data like hold and break rates are getting a slightly skewed number.
I’m inclined to believe that there isn’t just value in the over in this match, but also in Hassan to win a set or even the match outright.
Brandon Nakashima vs Benjamin Hassan H2H – Stat of the Match
This will be the first matchup between the two, with the American having spent more time the last few years on the main tour.
A lot of whether Nakashima can take control of this match will come down to whether he can replicate the break rate he had last year on the Challenger circuit (over 31%). This season he’s back down to 23% in that department, despite some strong efforts against some of the less powered players in Canberra.
Maxime Cressy vs Geoffrey Blancaneaux (Open Quimper Bretagne Occidentale) Free Pick: Cressy Too Short in Quick Conditions
- Pick: Blancaneaux to win
- Best Odds: 3.00
- Bookmaker: bet365
- Stakes: 2/10
Odds as at 2:15 am UK Time on January 24th, 2023. Odds may now differ.
It’s not that he can’t be a favourite – after all with his serve, he should be slightly favoured against players like Blancaneaux – but it’s hard to believe that his opponents should be a two-to-one underdog. Cressy’s style lends itself to close matches, and I’m happy to take a chance opposing him with the odds on offer.
Read on for more expert insights.
Maxime Cressy Recent Form
Cressy’s start to the year has only seen him play four matches, winning two and losing the other two.
Each of the losses came from set up, and more importantly came when he was the favourite in the betting markets.
That leads me to believe that the big American is slightly overvalued in the betting markets on quick courts thanks to his serve. Hugo Grenier and Lukas Klein are both Challenger Tour regulars (though Klein finally looks as though he may push for a spot on the main tour in the coming months) themselves, and I don’t think Blancaneaux is that much worse than them.
Cressy may have a huge serve, but with his tendency to hug the baseline robbing him of time on return and his less-than-stellar return prowess to begin with, we don’t really see him pick up all that many blowout wins.
Throw in the fact that his double fault rate can get him in trouble on serve and it feels like the opportunity to pull off the upset against him is always there.
Geoffrey Blancaneaux Recent Form
Blancaneaux could also use some more time on court this year, as he’s only played four matches this season himself, winning just one of them.
He split his matches against countryman Benoit Paire and his last match in Tenerife ended in two tiebreaks.
He hasn’t really been dominated this season by anyone, but he’s also struggled to come up with wins and win the big points.
This time last year I would have said that Blancaneaux was more of a clay courter who lacked weapons on hard courts. After watching him pick up some wins and look competitive during this stretch of the season, however, I do think he’s done solid work adding more aggression and pace to his game, while still maintaining his solidity from the baseline and in longer rallies.
I’m not sure how relevant the latter of those skills will be in a match that is sure to feature more quick points than most, but it could help at the margins, which could be essential in a match like this.
Maxime Cressy vs Geoffrey Blancaneaux H2H – Stat of the Match
Cressy leads the head-to-head series 3-0 against Blancaneaux, but it’s worth noting that two of those three wins came by as thin of a margin as possible.
All three times these two have played have come in quicker conditions indoors in France, with the last two both needing deciding set tiebreaks.
Not only do we have Cressy’s style of play lending itself to close matches, but we have a few matches played in similar conditions that have been decided by the slimmest of margins.
SAFER GAMBLING
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