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After beating Felix Auger-Aliassime in Monte Carlo, Daniel Altmaier now finds himself as a big favorite over Richard Gasquet in the second round of the Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters. However, there are a lot of reasons to like Gasquet to make this a match.
The 38-year-old is retiring after the French Open, but he’s still capable of producing some high-quality tennis. We saw that in his opening-round win over Matteo Arnaldi, and he also gave last week’s Bucharest champion, Flavio Cobolli, a match when they met there. With that in mind, I don’t quite understand the pricing here, so I’m getting some action on the retirement tour by taking Gasquet to win a set on Wednesday.
At this stage in his career, there’s always a chance Gasquet can turn in a stinker. That just comes with the territory of getting older. However, the Frenchman does benefit from having played his first-round match on Sunday, meaning he has had two days to recover for this one. That said, I’m not viewing fatigue as a factor here. Gasquet should be well-rested and ready to go, and that means he should be dangerous when his feet touch the red clay.
