• Author
• Recent Posts

Tennis Purist

The Tennis Purist - Pete - has been a full time tennis trader on Betfair since May 2012. Pete uses his own modelling platform to analyse data and statistics from the ATP, WTA and Challenger Tour circuits, in order to execute upon profitable trading opportunities pre-match and in-play.

Latest posts by Tennis Purist (see all)

• Trading Grass Court Tennis - May 29, 2018
• Rome Challenger & Madrid WTA Match Previews - May 9, 2018
• Munich & Istanbul ATP Tour Match Previews - May 5, 2018

Morning all, I’m back! And back with a bang in to the Miami Open. I’ve had some family bereavements to overcome but am now back to give you daily match previews from around the tennis circuit.

First up for me this week is the Miami Open, another ATP 1000 masters event held in Key Biscayne, Florida on the outdoor hard courts of the tennis centre in Crandon Park. Roger Federer is the reining champ of an event which Novak Djokovic has dominated over the past 7 years, winning it no less than 5 times!

Courts in Miami are of category 3 speed, so will be playing medium-fast and should favour the big servers and aggressive hitters.

Today we focus on one of those big servers, Nicolas Jarry as he takes on Great Britain’s Cameron Norrie.

Miami Open

Previous Meetings

This is the pairs first meeting, however both are in good form, Norrie has won 6 of his last 8 matches on hard courts whilst Jarry recently got to the final of a clay court event in Sao Paulo at the beginning of the month, where he lost to Fabio Fognini in a close match.

Norrie’s 2018 Mean Serving Stats

Won 60% of his service points

Held serve 76% of the time

Norrie’s serve is not one of his strengths, however he should be able to use his lefty swinging serves to find the Jarry backhand on the return, which could well stand him in good stead today if he can find some consistency with it.

Jarry’s 2018 Mean Serving Stats

Won 69% of his service points

Held serve 88% of the time

Unlike Norrie, the serve is one of Jarry’s major weapons, the quick courts and humid conditions here in Miami should make him very hard to break today.

Norrie’s 2018 Mean Returning Stats

Won 42% of his return points

Won 47% of his break points

Opponents have held 68% of the time against him

Norrie has well over the Tour average stats on the return of serve, he’s going to need to keep these numbers high if he’s going to break the Jarry serve today, as break points are likely to be few and far between.

Jarry’s 2018 Mean Returning Stats

Won 33% of his return points

Won 35% of his break points

Opponents have held 85% of the time against him

The weakest part of Jarry’s game is the return of serve, he will look to run around his backhand on the second serve and thus winners off his huge forehand. Consistency will be the key to the Chilean’s success off the retun.

Norrie’s Groundstrokes

Norrie will look to be consistent off the ground and try to find that Jarry backhand as often as possible, he will also look to use the slice to good effect and get Jarry hitting up on low skidding balls in order to generate easy put away’s.

Jarry’s Groundstrokes

Jarry’s forehand is huge, if at times very inconsistent, his backhand is an improving stroke and he can hit winners from either wing when on. He should be expecting to hit plenty of backhands today, so the consistency of this stroke will ultimately decide whether he is able to dictate points or not.

Summary

Looking at the odds, I think Norrie is too short today for the Miami Open , he may well just be too consistent for Jarry in the end but if the Chilean can get that forehand into play enough of the time today I side with him to win. I don’t expect a straight sets win for either player here, and don’t expect Jarry to be broken too often (if at all).