It was a disappointing day on the daily bets on Wednesday, with Gilles Simon giving away a 4-2 lead in set one of his clash with Reilly Opelka and going on to lose in two tie breaks in Tokyo.
And then Lucas Pouille found a great rhythm on serve and recorded his highest first serve percentage since the 2018 Mercedes Cup on grass against Rudolf Molleker against Yoshihito Nishioka.
I said yesterday that Pouille would need a lot of first serves and what a time that was for him to produce the most for more than 15 months and probably his best display of the year.
There was good news on the outrights though, as Fabio Fognini – one from my list of potential underdog winners on Tuesday – came through in straight sets over Andrey Rublev.
Moving on to Thursday then and it looks set to be a cloudier day in Tokyo than of late, with highs of around 28C in the shade, but much more humid – between 60 and 70% humidity (and some wind around as well at 20kph speed).
In Beijing they can expect more of the same: 30C in the shade and sunny, turning to cloud later, and about 40% humidity.
I’d have to give all of the underdogs at both venues today some sort of chance, but starting with Tokyo, Lloyd Harris and Taro Daniel look the best value picks.
Daniel by and large plies his trade on the clay, but he pops up and surprises on lively hard courts, too, when he’s feeling in a confident mood, as he showed last year at Winston-Salem when he beat Querrey, Millman, Koepfer and Jarry to make the semi finals.
Indeed, he should have beaten Jordan Thompson in straight sets on a quick hard court in Sydney at the start of this season when he led by a set a break and ended up being bagelled in the decider, having lost a set two tie break.
Going back to 2014 Daniel Beat Thompson on a hard court in Vancouver and the latter had to work hard, staving off 9 of 11 break chances created by another predominantly clay court player in Juan Ignacio Londero in the opening round here.
Daniel will be boosted by having taken down Borna Coric in round one and I’d expect this to be close, with the over games, over sets and tie break played (at 2.70) the pick of the bets.
Lloyd Harris has been in good form on the quicker surfaces this past few weeks and he took down John Millman as underdog the last time this pair met, which was at the Kaohsiung Challenger two seasons ago.
Both Harris and Millman defeated fatigued opponents on Tuesday when they faced the winner and runner-up from Zhuhai, Alex De Minaur and Adrian Mannarino and were able to outlast that pair.
Millman won the Kaohsiung Challenger a few weeks ago, but his main level for has been medicore to say the least lately, losing six of his last 10 and posting a hold/break total of 94.8 in those matches.
In comparison, Harris has won six of his last 10 at this level, held serve 87.1% of the time and produced a hold/break total of 103.9, so his form is excellent right now, mainly due to his serving over one ace per game on average in those 10 matches) in the current quick conditions.
He’s already beaten one very good defender (albeit a tired one) in De Minaur and he can certainly to it again to Millman, who had to save three match points against Bradley Klahn in qualies just to get here.
He edged past an increasingly fatigued Mannarino by only three points and on current form I’m happy to take Harris here.
Moving on to Beijing and John Isner has a chance for revenge after losing from a set up to Dan Evans in a weak showing in Delray Beach in slow conditions earlier this season.
It’s quicker in Beijing and in a day match here Evans, who’s 2-6 win loss against the big servers in my database, may struggle to repeat that Delray Beach success.
I’m hopeful that our man Diego Schwartzman can get past Sam Querrey and it’ll be an evening clash, so conditions should be fine for the Argentine, who’s beaten Querrey in two of their three hard court clashes (the one loss was at the very fast Shanghai Masters).
It would be handy for Schwartzman backers if Alexander Zverev were to be beaten by Felix Auger-Aliassime and there’s certainly a reasonable chance of that after FAA looked more like his earlier season self in his round one against Albert Ramos.
I’m not wild about the price though and I prefer taking a chance on a three setter between Nikoloz Basilashvili and Stefanos Tsitsipas in the clash on Diamond Court at around 09:30 UK time (16:30 local time).
Neither man has been at their best this hard court swing, but both have shown signs of improvement lately, however I can’t see either of them winning this in two.
The pair played out a tight four-setter in Melbourne this January when Tsitsipas edged it by 11 points and went on to make the semi finals of that tournament, but he’s not been in anything like that form this summer.
The Greek took down Dusan Lajovic from a set down, but won only 46% of his second serve points in that one, while the match prior to that (in which he ended up retiring due to breathing issues) he won 38% against Mannarino, and before that it was 33% against Fritz in Laver Cup.
So, he needs the serve to help him a bit at the moment, while as for Basil, well, as defending Beijing champion I’m expecting a more determined showing than we sometimes see from him.
Rarely does he keep his best level up long enough to beat the better players, with only three of his last 17 matches against top-20 opponents being won by Basil in straight sets.
I’m happy to take the 2.32 about over 2.5 sets in this one to make a trio of viable odds-against selections for Thursday.
Best Bets
0.5 points win tie break played in Thompson/Daniel at 2.70
0.5 points win Harris to beat Millman at 2.48
0.5 points win over 2.5 sets in Basilashvili/Tsitsipas at 2.32
