Analysis for Monfils-Guccione (ATP Nottingham)

Head-to-head record 0:0

The lanky Guccione burst onto the scene in the 2004 Medibank International tournament, where he defeated then-recent World No. 1 Juan Carlos Ferrero. Guccione is noted for his good service - he hit 50 aces in a qualifying match at Wimbledon in 2005. His strategy when playing is Serve-and-Volley which is suitable to fast surfaces such as grass. Prior to the AO this year, John Newcombe lashed out at Guccione for his lack of match fitness saying that with his height and his serve, he could be lethal out there and that he should be top-30 in the world and trouble anyone if he was properly fit. However, Chris Guccione responded to his criticisms for his performances at the 2008 Medibank International. We agree with this and also think that Guccione has a decent potential and should be higher ranked than he currently is. He had an impressive start of the year beating the top players such as Hewitt, Stepanek or Berdych. According to the expectations, the clay season wasn’t successful for him but now he should be back on the scene. He is always hard to be broken when he is on serve and we expect a tight match that could be decided in breakers today. Last week, he was knocked out by Mardy Fish in the second round at Queens but showed the solid performance there. Gael Monfils, on the other hand, lacks the match practice on grass and even if he is coming off a stellar French open, we don’t expect him to dominate in the same way here. Match should be closer than odds say and we see a value on Aussie side with the odds above 2.5.