Tennis betting has probably seen more exciting matchups than Philipp Kohlschreiber vs. Íñigo ‘Montoya’ Cervantes, which takes place at Internazionali BNL D’Italia – aka Italian Open – on Tuesday May 10th. But wouldn’t it be awesome if right before the match the Spaniard told the German: “Hello. My name is Íñigo Cervantes. You killed my father. Prepare to die.” And then he would proceed to defeat the favorite Kohlschreiber (-550) in singles combat. Well okay, he would not really be avenging his father’s death, but he would be getting a measure of revenge for the loss that Kohlschreiber inflicted on him in 2010 in Auckland (6-2,6-3).
Both Cervantes and Kohlschreiber have won most of their most recent matches. The German has recently defeated Pablo Carreno Busta, Feliciano Lopez, Andrey Kuznetsov, Florian Mayer, Juan Martin Del Potro, Fabio Fognini, and Dominic Thiem, while the Spaniard has beaten Louis Tessa, Sergiy Sergiienko, Filip Dolezel, Libor Salaba, Scott Clayton, Roman Jebavy, George Tsivadze, and Maciej Smola. On the other hand, Cervantes has lost to Jan Satral and Mohamed Safwat as of late, while Kohlschreiber has conceded defeat to none other than Stan Warinka and Rafael Nadal. So it comes down to who’d you bet on tennis; someone who has lost to two greats, or someone who lost to a couple of nobodies.
Furthermore, Kohlschreiber has won 30 matches and lost 22 for a win ratio of 57.69%. As for Cervantes, he has won 11 and lost 16 for a win ration of 40.74%. The German is ranked 26th in the world, is 32 years old, was born in Augsburg, Germany but resides in Kitzbühel, Austria, stands 5’10” tall, weighs 154 lbs, plays right-handed (one-handed backhand), and turned professional in 2001. Cervantes is ranked 65th, is 26 years old, was born in Hondarribia, Guipúzcoa, Spain, resides in Javea, Spain, stands 6’ tall, weighs 172 lbs, plays right-handed (two-handed backhand), and turned pro in 2009. Finally, Cervantes has earned $ 558,933 in prize money as opposed to $ 9,077,947 by Kohlschreiber.
The tennis betting odds, the experience, the history, the ranking, and the stats all favor Philipp Kohlschreiber over underdog Íñigo Cervantes who apparently has nothing going for him other than the fact that he is younger and thus possibly faster, more agile and enduring. Of course these are all just numbers, and while they can help make a prediction, no one can really tell for sure what will happen on match day. That’s the beauty of sports in general and tennis in particular; the unpredictability which means that anything can happen on any given Sunday (or, in this case, Tuesday).