ITF M15 Szekesfehervar - Can Vrbensky challenge Perchicot?

Bright Future in Czech Tennis

There are a lot of young talents from the Czech Republic that are currently knocking on the door of playing Challengers on the regular. With Dalibor Svrcina, Jiri Lehecka, Jonas Forejtek, Ondrej Styler and Tomas Machac, they have five players born in 2000 or later that made it to the junior top 20. Another player that didn't make that list because he was born in 1999 is Michael Vrbensky. He was a top junior as well, with a career high #14.

While Svrcina, Lehecka and Forejtek are currently playing at the US Open junior competition and all won their first match, Machac is already playing at the Cassis Challenger in France. Vrbensky and Machac quit their junior careers in 2017 resp. early 2018 and gave it a go on the pro tour. Both already made it to the top 500.

Early Success at Home Challengers

Michael Vrbensky was first introduced to a Challenger in Liberec last year, receiving a Wild Card by the tournament. He did not prove them wrong and only lost to 12-time Challenger champion Andrej Martin after beating David Poljak and Uladzimir Ignatik.

Between June and August 2019, Vrbensky participated in four more Challenger events. He only made the second round once, but had some close losses and a win against Andrea Collarini, who just won the Challenger in L'Aquila, Italy last week.

Playing in a Challenger main draw event is an experience that Vrbensky's opponent today, Mathieu Perchicot, still lacks. He was in qualifying twice, but failed to make it through. The Frenchman, 27 years of age, had some impressive results on the ITF tour this year instead. Mainly playing in North Africa, he won the title in Tabarka, Tunisia the first week of August.

Odds are made by Numbers

Although I have nothing but respect for Perchicot, really climbing up the rankings in his late twenties, I do think the odds in this matchup are not where they should be. They are mainly driven by numbers, not talent. Perchicot is 35-20 on clay this year, Vrbensky 10-9. So the Frenchman does win more matches and has a better ranking, but Vrbensky already competes at a higher level regularly. Talentwise, there's not much between the two and I would even say the Czech has the higher ceiling.

The odds of 3.60, currently available at the Betfair sportsbook, imply a winning probability of around 28% for the young Czech. That number is just wrong in my opinion and therefore, I take the risk of the higher odds here as I think this is a pretty evenly matchup.