Our man Daniil Medvedev covered the handicap pretty comfortably on Thursday in Washington DC against Frances Tiafoe and advanced to Friday’s quarter finals, where he’ll take on Marin Cilic.
Unfortunately, Yoshihito Nishioka came up against a very good performance from Nick Kyrgios, where the unpredictable Aussie was on top form, which made it very tough indeed for the Japanese.
The weather on quarter finals day is forecast to suggest thunderstorms in the area all day, so it’s pot luck as to whether they’ll hit the William H.G. FitzGerald Tennis Center.
It’ll be very humid at 60-70% humidity and 30C in the shade, so a tough one for the players.
Benoit Paire, Peter Gojowczyk, Norbert Gombos and Kyle Edmund were the underdog winners on Thursday and I didn’t really fancy any of them, but Edmund was a possibility if you trusted his belief, which I didn’t.
Norbert Gombos is enjoying his time as a lucky loser here, but if Nick Kyrgios continues in his current vein the chances of the Slovakian look rather limited on Friday.
The combustible Aussie says he’s getting help on the mental side of his game, which, while probably long overdue, is a good sign for Kyrgios.
“I’ve got some people working with me on the mental side of things because I want to make improvements. I’m winning matches and there are some glimpses of that [improvement].”
Gombos surely isn’t up to this challenge, with his 1-9 win/loss record versus top-50 opposition (lost the last eight), and he probably should have been beaten by Miomir Kecmanovic yesterday as well, with the latter being ahead in pretty much all categories.
Gombos is 4-17 at main level, winning only 42% of his second serve points, and unless NK has one of his frequent crazy days he should take this as comfortably as he did when facing Gombos in Marseille in 2017.
There were a few poor performances out there on Thursday and Canadian duo, Felix Auger-Aliassime and Milos Raonic, were somewhere near the top of the list, and they’ll be hoping for much better at home in Montreal next week.
FAA was poor indeed against Marin Cilic, which was a bit of a surprise after he had played so well against Reilly Opelka the previous day, but I guess we have to consider that at his age that will happen from time to time with Auger-Aliassime.
It doesn’t tell us a lot about Cilic’s level though, with FAA admitting: “I don’t know what it was, but I couldn’t figure it out, and it was just really tough out there today. It was just – in every way – I just felt like I couldn’t even play close to what I’m able to.”
Cilic got a little lucky that Marius Copil blew his chances of taking the opening set of their round one clash as well, but surely Cilic will come back to form soon enough (which is why I risked him at Wimbledon) and he might be a danger to our man Daniil Medvedev on Friday.
This is a first career clash and on all this season’s stats it should go the way of the Russian, but you never know when Cilic will click into gear and become very good again, which is my only real concern here.
If the Croat doesn’t find some of his old form Medvedev will surely take this one.
Peter Gojowczyk vs Kyle Edmund
Raonic was yet again struggling with a back problem in his loss to Gojowczyk on Thursday and against the very flat hitting of the German on a decent paced court that was a problem for the Canadian.
Gojowczyk is possibly one of the hardest players to call on the tour, as he plays a very low percentage game, very aggressive and hits very flat, which is prone to being error-ridden if he’s not on peak form.
Combine that with a first serve percentage that’s often too low (53.5% this week in the main draw and 54% for the season at main level on all surfaces.
That puts a lot of pressure on a ground game that’s very high risk, but when it works it’s extremely effective and can easily rush someone like Kyle Edmund, who likes a little time on his shots.
That was the case early on in both of their previous meetings, with Gojowczyk leading by a set both times (set and a break in similar conditions to these in Atlanta), but again he ended up getting only 52% of his first serves into play in both of those meetings.
The German has been a tad lucky here this week in the sense that all three of his main draw opponents (he lost to Donald Young in qualies) were physically impaired.
Andrey Rublev and Alex De Minaur had tight turnarounds from finals a couple of days prior, while Raonic’s dodgy back went again, so Gojowczyk will need to serve at around 60% in all likelihood to match Edmund today.
The Brit was being rushed by Jo-Wilfried Tsonga on Thursday, but Tsonga became increasingly wild and errant, going for too much and missing towards the end of that one.
The win will be a good confidence boost for Edmund and having met Gojowczyk twice before he’ll know what to expect, but that doesn’t mean he won’t have some very tricky moments against the occasionally unplayable German.
I like the 2-1 win for Edmund in this one at 3.85 for small stakes on what looks a tricky day.
The final option isn’t a great one, as it’s Benoit Paire, with the unpredictable Frenchman facing Stefanos Tsitsipas, who’s looked very business-like so far this week.
I didn’t fancy Paire much against John Isner, but it seems that Isner’s best form was reserved only for the match against my man Hubert Hurkacz and it deserted him against Paire on Thursday.
Paire did beat Tsitsipas in their only career clash, but it was a while ago and it’s hard to see Paire’s shaky forehand matching up that well to the current version of the Greek player.
You never know, of course. If Paire serves his best and has a good day on that forehand side it’s winnable, but I’m not inclined to trust him unless it’s a very appealing price.
Best Bets
0.5 points win Edmund to beat Gojowczyk 2-1 at 3.85
