You could hear a pin drop around the world yesterday at supper time, as my gleaning 4-0 record in table tennis dropped to 4-1 thanks to that pesky fake Andrey Kirilenko imposter.
No worries — another day, another ping-pong pick.
It's still a very new sport for some people (not me, I've been at this for a week), so it's a perfect time to take advantage of the two $100 risk free bets PointsBet is offering.
Bet Ping Pong at Pointsbet all day, every day! Sign up now to get $200 in risk-free bets.
Oleg Kutuzov vs. Andrey Menshikov
- Kutuzov: -120
- Menshikov: -110
- 4 p.m. ET
I have done some serious number crunching on this one. My loss yesterday has only intensified my thirst for ping-pong winners.
Menshikov has the 17-14 head-to-head advantage, with matches between the two dating back to April 12. He won 17 sets in those losses, giving him 68 sets in the 31 matches.
In the H2H department, Kutuzov has the worse record, but kept things closer when he lost, posting 27 sets in his 17 losses. Add those to his 42 sets in wins (three sets per win) and you get 69 — one more than Menshikov.
If we look at each player's past 50 matches, both sport very solid records.
- Menshikov: 28-22, 2.12 sets per match, opponent 1.92 sets per match
- Kutuzov: 31-19, 2.3 sets per match, opponent 1.34 sets per match
But, while their records are similar, Kutuzov is out-setting his opponents by nearly a full set, while Menshikov has a gap of just 0.2.
Finally, when we look at their recent form over the past few days (since April 28):
- Menshikov: 10-6, 2.375 sets per match, opponent 1.56 sets per match
- Kutuzov: 16-4, 2.75 sets per match, opponent 1.05 sets per match
Kutuzov is absolutely on fire, sporting an .800 record and posting seven sets in the four matches he did lose. Once again, the gap in sets per match is quite girthy.
My advanced ping pong stats will probably break the market in due time so get while the getting is good. As their H2H records show, this is far from a lock, but I think Kutuzov's better metrics should give him more of an edge in the long run.
Other books around the market have Kutuzov in the -140 range, so his line at Pointsbet is ripe for the picking.
