Strong showings from Andrey Rublev and Reilly Opelka put us in a decent position in Hamburg and Atlanta on Friday, with both big-priced bets through to the semi finals.
Both are slight favourites to progress to the title matches on Saturday, but we were unlucky with Alexei Popyrin, who struggled in the heat in Atlanta and after a good start against Cam Norrie he had the doctor out for rehydration pills.
That was disappointing, as was Miomir Kecmanovic, who came up against a very good Taylor Fritz on Friday.
I said yesterday that Fritz would have to play a near perfect match to progress comfortably and in the first set he did and you have to say ‘too good’ when that happens.
We’re still in a good position for the week though, with those who took the 50-1 about Andrey Rublev simply needing to place a hedging bet on Pablo Carreno Busta today at around evens to make a guaranteed profit on that deal.
Rublev goes against PCB at around 14:00 UK time on Saturday in Hamburg and it’ll be a fourth career meeting, with Rublev having won all three (one at exhibition level) against the Spaniard thus far.
And our man certainly has the sort of game that can punch holes in the defences of PCB, with the Spaniard (certainly prior to this week) way down on his movement and consistency since his latest injury break.
Fabio Fognini should have taken him out yesterday in a typically Fabio sort of a match that went all the way to a final set breaker in 2 hours and 38 minutes and finished late in the evening, so PCB will probably be a bit fatigued after that.
PCB was running at around 36% of second serve points won (he ended up on 43%) for most of the Fognini match and that will be an area that the aggressive Rublev will look to exploit.
Rublev’s second serve – a traditional weak spot for him – has held up well against fine clay courters in Ruud and Thiem, winning 57% on his second ball in each of those matches and on this form we have to like our chances.
You never know in a semi final, but Rublev has done well in the three he’s contested at this level so far, winning two, and the one he lost he blew four match points in from 6-2 in a tie break.
It’s worth having a small hedge on Rublev, which for me will be 2.5 points on PCB, but I’m optimistic about the Russian in this match up today.
Hopefully, Rublev will win and Nikoloz Basilashvili will take down the Ivan Lendl-less Alexander Zverev, who benefitted from a painfully predictable choke from Filip Krajinovic yesterday, and set up what would be an entertaining final.
Moving on to Atlanta and Reilly Opelka had his serving shoes on against Dan Evans on Friday and was good from the baseline as well, so why not an Opelka win today against an opponent of similar size and build on Saturday?
Alex De Minaur faced weak resistance from Bernard Tomic on Friday, with Bernie calling it quits with a supposed back problem in set two of their clash and De Minaur has a bit to prove yet against big servers.
De Minaur has lost seven of his last nine against the ones in my database and holds serve around 85% of the time against them, breaking around 13% of the time and playing 0.27 tie breaks per set.
He did beat Opelka on home ground in Sydney earlier this season in a rain-affected match in which De Minaur broke in the only game played before a delay and there were no further breaks.
If Opelka is able to serve as well again as he did against Evans he’s got every chance here, with De Minaur not as keen on the awkward low slice as someone like Evans is.
The American has perfect, lively, high-bouncing conditions for his game and again I’m optimistic that he can progress here.
Taylor Fritz on current form shouldn’t have too many problems with Cameron Norrie, but Fritz has struggled against lefties at times in his career and lost to Norrie on hard earlier on this season.
Fritz lost nine of his first 10 matches at main level against lefties, but has now won six of his last eight, including swift revenge for that Auckland defeat to Norrie only four days later at the Australian Open.
For me, Norrie’s line and length game is unlikely to stand up to the firepower coming at him from the other side of the net if Fritz continues in the sort of form he showed against Kecmanovic.
Popyrin was giving Norrie all he could handle and more until his health let him down and in these conditions I’d expect Fritz to be too strong for Norrie.
So, as far as bets are concerned for today I’ll grudgingly place a small hedging bet on Carreno Busta, given that this is effectively a final for a 25-1 bet and how well have we fared in those matches this season?
Not well and I’ll let Opelka ride for now, as he’s a straight win bet and will probably have a tough final if he beats De Minaur anyway.
Best Bet
2.5 points win Carreno Busta to beat Rublev (only if backed Rublev each-way outright at 50-1 pre-tournament) at 1.95
