ATP tournament in Marseille, final, Sunday, 11.02.2024
A highly interesting match awaits us in the final in Marseille. Ugo Humbert and Grigor Dimitrov have fought their way into the 250 tournament final. The Frenchman defeated Hubert Hurkacz, last year’s winner, in the semi-finals.
Admittedly, it was a surprising success for me, it was an upside-down world on Saturday in terms of the service odds and my Hurkacz tip was wrong for the first time in a long time after a long series of hits in tennis.
For the final, I want to set the blinker again and switch to victory lane. As in Montpellier last week, I’m expecting a tightly contested match and have set my Humbert Dimitrov tip at over 21.5 games at Tipwin
In his service games Humbert was almost untouchable. An incredible 77 percent first serve rate paved the way for Humbert’s success against the defending champion. 37 of the 46 points were scored by the Frenchman.
It was also his first win against the world number eight, against whom he had previously lost three times. In the end, two of his two break chances were enough to secure his first appearance in the final in Marseille.
Hurkacz’s performance was surprisingly weak, as he also successfully hit a solid 63 percent of his first serves, but only managed to score seven out of 19 possible points on his second serves.
The next big hurdle awaits Humbert with Dimitrov. Once again, he will play the role of the underdog, at least that’s how the betting providers see it. Bet365, an excellent betting provider with its own tennis betting configurator, gives Humbert 3.00 odds to win.
Dimitrov is clearly ahead at 1.37 odds. In my opinion, the odds are definitely too far apart, a bet on Humbert, albeit with a small stake, definitely has value.
After all, he not only beat Hurkacz easily in two rounds, but also Alejandro Davidovich Fokina. Another advantage on Sunday is the freshness factor.
Humbert played much earlier on Saturday and was on court for 1:21 hours, while Dimitirov still had to serve late in the evening and played out three sets against Karen Khachanov and fought for victory for exactly three hours.
Bet365 also has lucrative odds of 1.58 on Humbert winning the set. However, Humbert is once again facing a direct duel in which the score is 0:3 from his point of view. However, only two of the three games have been played.
In their last encounter, the quarter-finals of Washington 2023, Humbert had to concede the semi-final place to Dimitrov without a fight. The other matches took place several years ago. The two stars played each other in Paris (4-6, 6-1, 6-2) and New York (6-3, 6-4) in 2019 and 2020.
Humbert has since improved his game significantly and is ranked 21st in the world, just eight places behind Dimitrov, who had fewer problems before the tough match against Khachanov against Arthur Rinderknech and Sebastian Korda with two straight wins
The duel statistics speak for Dimitrov, the freshness and recent form for Humbert. A match over three sets is anything but unlikely. The corresponding odds at Bet365 are 2.20.
Like Bet365, Tipwin is also one of the betting providers without tax. In addition to this advantage, Tipwin also flexes its muscles with the over/under game bets, one of the few bookmakers that still offers this market in the tennis sector.
The betting partner of Bundesliga table leader Bayer Leverkusen also has hot odds to offer for the Marseille final. Odds of 1.55 are offered for “Over 21.5 games”. A top odds and alternative for the three-set bet.
After all, a 7-5, 6-4 or 7-6, 6-3, for example, would be enough for a successful betting slip and Dimitrov has already played four tiebreaks in his three matches
My Humbert Dimitrov tip
Dimitrov has won the first two duels against Humbert, although the matches took place three and a half and four and a half years ago. Now 25 years old, Humbert has definitely improved his game.
He is also probably the fitter player in the Marseille final, he was allowed to play earlier and, at 81 minutes, had a quick match compared to Dimitrov’s three-hour match against Khachanov.
If I had to choose a winner, I would even go for the 3.00 odds of Humbert, who defeated the eighth player in the world in Hurkacz and produced 77 percent first serves.
However, I find the 1.55 odds for over 21.5 games in the final more lucrative. I was already spot on with this bet in the Montpellier final. The second ATP final in the south of France is also unlikely to be a quick affair. The last match between Dimitrov and Humbert would also have come with odds.
My Humbert Dimitrov tip: Over 21.5 games
