Basilashvili Faces Rublev In Hamburg Open Tennis Finals

The mainstream sports media focuses on tennis only during the major tournaments but astute bettors know that it’s a great sport to handicap all year around. In this preview, we’ll look at the finals of the ATP Hamburg Open. Technically, the name of the event is the German Open Hamburg Tennis Championships and has a lineage that dates back to 1892. It’s been held on the clay courts at Am Rothenbaum since 1924.

In the final, Nikoloz Basilashvili has a chance to defend his 2018 Hamburg Open championship but must hold off the challenge of Andrey Rublev. Going back to back in the Hamburg Open would be a big deal for Basilashvili–the last person to do that was a guy you may have heard of named Roger Federer who did it in 2004 and 2005. It’s only been done one other time since 1978 by Andrei Medvedev in 1994 and 1995 so it’s not an insignificant accomplishment. There are some very impressive names on the winner’s roster that weren’t able to go back to back during the past 41 years including Rafael Nadal, Stefan Edberg and Ivan Lendl. Keep in mind that before 2009, it was part of the ATP Masters Series but has been downgraded to an ATP World Tour 500 event.

Basilashvili is coming off a brutal semifinals matchup against #5 ranked Alexander Zverev on Saturday and it could be a tough turnaround for him. Basilashvili fought off two match points and a 5-2 deficit in the third set tiebreaker to win 6-4, 4-6, 7-6 (5). After the three hour plus battle, Basilashvili admitted that he had a tough time keeping his emotions in check during the match and that could leave him in a mental ‘letdown mode’ heading into the finals. By contrast, his finals opponent Andrey Rublev might have had a slightly easier time of it in his semifinal matchup against Pablo Carreno Busta. The two traded the first two sets with Busta winning the first 6-4 before Rublev took control winning the second set 7-5 and the third set 6-1.

Rublev is no slouch on hard courts himself and the setup is much better for the 21 year old Russian phenom. Look for Rublev’s youth and less arduous path to the Finals to be the difference maker particularly as the match moves into it’s later stages. The tennis betting odds show Rublev as a slight favorite and we have no problem laying the chalk in this one.

BET ANDREY RUBLEV -132 OVER NIKOLOZ BASILASHVILI
BET ANDREY RUBLEV/NIKOLOZ BASILASHVILI OVER 23 GAMES -113

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