ITF W15 Monastir - Top talent Burel back from injury

Recurring Tournaments Required

Tennis is one of the few sports you can literally have a bet on 24/7/365. Degenerates all over the world will get into trouble this year though as the ITF event in Hong Kong, usually taking place the last week of December, did not make this year's schedule. Just like Hong Kong in the past, some more venues host events week after week.

A long way off from the spotlight, currently shining in Madrid with the Davis Cup Finals, lower ranked players are required to play these kind of tournaments as they aren't able to travel week in, week out. Places like Antalya in Turkey or Sharm El Sheikh in Egypt come to mind immediately. Also in Tunisia, tennis is played all year. The tournament in Hammamet was part of the ITF tour in previous years, but was replaced by Tabarka and Monastir this year. Today's final of the 15k event in Monastir will be a battle between French youngsters Carole Monnet and Clara Burel.

Turnaround in Tunisia

Both women were born in 2001, but Monnet has to wait one more week until her 18th birthday. The way she improved this fall seems like an early present for herself. Coming into the 15k event in Lousada, Portugal one month ago, her 2019 pro tour record was at 9 wins and 11 losses. Since then, she won 14 of her 17 matches and also captured her first ITF title in Monastir last week. Monnet is still undefeated in Monastir and has now won nine straight matches at the venue.

Arriving in Tunisia, Clara Burel had a disappointing year as well. But that didn't have anything to do with her results as she just wasn't able to play since April. After the French youngster had to deal with wrist injuries since the beginning of her career, she decided to undergo surgery in May.

Before that, her 2019 campaign started promising when she offered a great fight against Carla Suarez Navarro at the Australian Open. Burel was the internal selection of the FFT and did not disappoint. In 2018, she had even more success in Australia, reaching the final of the juniors competition. At the US Open, she achieved the same feat. After losing in two Grand Slam junior finals, Burel managed to win the 2018 ITF Junior Masters in Chengdu and finished her junior career on top of the rankings.

Burel with the better skillset

Monnet is still competing in junior events in 2019 and is currently 32nd in the rankings. She won against Clara Tauson at the JA Milan, but usually comes off second best when facing top talents.

First I was a bit cautious about Burel's wrist and therefore didn't bet her this week, but it seems like she's playing freely again. After only doing slice backhands in September, she started hitting double-handed backhands again at the beginning of October. I'm pretty sure she would not have played in Monastir if she didn't feel close to 100% again as you wouldn't risk the injury to break up again.

That being said, even with Monnet's improvement, Burel is the much more talented player. Even if her backhand is not exactly where it was before the injury, she should have the advantage there as Monnet's is pretty basic. Burel can also generate better angles and has more power to her shots. The 18-year-old didn't lose a set this week and I expect that to continue in today's final. Unfortunately, the odds on Burel keep dropping, so while writing this up, the 2-0 set score went from 2.25 to 2.00, but I still think there's value in that number.