Jaume Munar vs. Jan-Lennard Struff, Mutua Madrid Open

Jan-Lennard Struff won the first ATP title of his career last week, taking home the BMW Open in Munich. Struff went through quite the gauntlet, earning wins over Botic Van De Zandschulp, Felix Auger-Aliassime, Holger Rune and Taylor Fritz. However, Struff now needs to find a way to come down off that serious high. And he has to do it against a very tough opponent: Jaume Munar, a tremendous clay-court player. With that in mind, I like the idea of taking a flier on Munar to win this match at the Mutua Madrid Open.

If you’ve read my work here before, you know I’m a big believer in let-down spots. Struff just did something that he has never done in his entire professional career, and it’ll be difficult for him to bring the energy and focus he had last week. On top of that, the market has reacted to what happened in Munich. Struff is a big favorite over Munar, and he opened at an even bigger number. But a good argument can be made that this should be closer to even-money odds. And I wouldn’t argue with anybody that has Munar as a favorite.

Munar is just a little more proven on clay than his opponent. Sure, Munar has never won an ATP title on dirt, but he has won nine clay-court titles at the Challenger level. Struff has four clay-court titles at the Challenger level. And while Struff has played a lot of clay-court tournaments in his career, he does venture out and play on other surfaces a lot more than Munar does. Munar’s game is built to be effective on this very surface. That should manifest itself in this match.

Struff’s biggest weapons are his powerful serve and big baseline game. However, he doesn’t have much outside of that. So, he could be a little overmatched against a player like Munar, who has a lot of variety. And overall, you shouldn’t be surprised if Munar wins a ridiculous percentage of the longer rallies in this match. Also, Munar is an effective returner on the dirt. He has a 27.8% break percentage on clay in his career, and that number is up at 31.7% over the last 52 weeks. So, even though Madrid plays a little faster than other clay-court events, Munar should be able to do a decent job of neutralizing Struff’s biggest weapon.

All in all, this just feels like a match that can go either way. And if it’s 50-50, you generally want to take a shot on the big underdog. The value is there for Munar.

Pick: Munar ML (+160)