Analysis for Levine-Guccione (ATP Cincinnati)

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. His strategy when playing is Serve-and-Volley which is suitable to fast surface. Prior to the AO this year, he was critised for his lack of match fitness. Some tennis experts thought that he should be top-30 in the world and could 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. The second half of the season hasn´t been turning well so far but we think he has the skills to break the current losing streak. He qualified pretty easily for this event and his opponent is not the world class player. Levine has a solid season this year but we don´t think he deserves to be such a big favourite against huge serving Guccione. In May he won all five of his matches, dropping only one set, to win the Bradenton, Florida Challenger event. In June at Wimbledon, after qualifying by winning three matches, and then getting "shivers" on his arms as he walked out for his opening match, he beat Donald Young in the first round at Wimbledon. In the next round he lost to Jurgen Melzer in five sets. On US hard courts, he played really tough opponents such as Nadal or Haas so we cannot take his losses seriously. He has a solid form but we still don´t think he should be a favourite here. Guccione´s odds above 2 have the value for us.