Stefano Napolitano vs Kilian Feldbausch

Highlights

• • Feldbausch is the market favorite and has a larger, stronger match history
• • Napolitano’s grass experience narrows the gap, but not enough to create value at 2.00

Pros

• + Conservative stance avoids a marginal market where implied probability equals our estimate
• + Acknowledges surface-specific uncertainty which could materially affect outcome

Cons

• - If Napolitano’s grass form is materially better than documented, we may be missing a small value opportunity
• - Small sample sizes and limited data mean our probability estimate has notable variance

Details

We compare the market prices (Napolitano 2.00, Feldbausch 1.84) to our assessment. Feldbausch has a substantially larger match sample and a stronger overall record (40-30 vs 10-14) suggesting a baseline edge; the market appropriately favors him. Napolitano’s documented experience on grass is a potential surface advantage, but the available recent form for both comes from clay events and is limited. Given the limited, conflicting surface information and small sample for Napolitano, our best estimate of Feldbausch’s true win probability is about 54.0%, which is almost exactly the market-implied threshold (1/1.84 = 54.35%). At the current prices the expected return on either side is essentially neutral-to-negative (Feldbausch: slight negative EV at 1.84 given our 54.0% estimate; Napolitano would require >50% true probability to justify 2.00). Because we cannot identify a meaningful positive edge after accounting for surface uncertainty and disparate sample sizes, we recommend no bet.

Key factors

• • Feldbausch has a much larger match sample and better overall record (40-30 vs 10-14), indicating baseline consistency advantage
• • Napolitano is the only player with documented grass experience, which could mitigate Feldbausch’s edge on this surface
• • Both players’ recent results referenced are from clay at the same event, introducing uncertainty when projecting to grass