Alex De Minaur defeated Bradley Klahn pretty much in the manner I had anticipated on Wednesday, with the Aussie never to face a break point, winning 85% of his service points, despite only getting 49% of his first serves in.
So, it was pretty comfortable for either 2-0 or -3.5 games backers in that one.
As far as the outrights are concerned it’s been a decent week – so far – with three big-priced ones through to the last eight in Atlanta and Hamburg and they are 20-1 Reilly Opelka and 50-1 Alexei Popyrin and 50-1 Andrey Rublev.
Rublev clearly has a job on his hands in boiling Hamburg – there won’t be too many years when Hamburg is hotter than Atlanta – against top seed Dominic Thiem, but the latter has yet to pass this quarter final stage at this tournament.
Last year Thiem lost (at the same price of 1.15 that he is today against Rublev) to a big hitting opponent who likes to hit hard on the forehand side (Nicolas Jarry), so our man isn’t without some sort of a chance on Friday.
He also had a match point when the pair met on clay last season, but clearly the more likely prospects lie with Opelka and Popyrin and after all the losing finalists we’ve had this season it would be nice if the right strategy converted into a pay out for a change in 2019.
With Opelka the idea was that he could out-Isner the top seed and the draw would open up and that’s what happened on Wednesday night, with Opelka edging Isner in three breakers and now he faces Dan Evans.
The pair have never met, but looking at the record of Evans against the big servers in my database we find that Evans is 3-6 win/loss all-time against them, but he’s won three of the last four (Isner, Copil and Cilic).
The Isner win this season was at Delray Beach when Evans went on to narrowly lose the final from match points up, but Isner was woeful in that match (although that doesn’t always stop him from winning) and came to Delray Beach having lost seven of his previous nine matches.
Of returning the Isner serve, Evans said: “I wouldn't say I was guessing, but I was sort of anticipating and I got it right. I returned really well when I got my racquet on the ball, and that was my goal. Just to get the ball back and get the running shoes on.”
Delray Beach is slower than Atlanta and we’ll see if Evans’ Nikes can cope with the running he’ll need to do if he imposes that strategy today, which he surely will.
Opelka has been good so far this week and I’m optimistic of his chances against Evans on a high bouncing court like this one, where the likes of Isner, Opelka, Kyrgios and co tend to fare very well.
Alexei Popyrin also faces a Brit in Cam Norrie, who improved markedly in beating Soonwoo Kwon in round two from any previous form shown in recent months, but that’s what Norrie can do.
Indeed, Norrie was one of our many big priced outright losers earlier this season when we backed him in Auckland only to see him lose as favourite in the final and when he does find his form he can be tough to stop.
Tennys Sandgren managed it pretty comfortably in that Auckland final and Popyrin with a similar game could well overpower the Brit, but he’ll need to carry on the form he’s showed in the last few months.
Popyrin has only played three main level matches against lefties, winning two and losing the other in a final set tie break, and a win over Ugo Humbert on clay and Mischa Zverev on hard doesn’t tell us a great deal.
But we know he’s made improvements to his game lately, getting to net more than ever and utilising the slice and the two-hander on the backhand side, so he can do a lot if Norrie’s length strays from the consistently good one he found against Kwon.
If we’re going on the stats of the last three months on all surfaces at main level then Popyrin is some way ahead, as Norrie has only held serve 70.7% of the time and broken 17.8% of the time for a weak total of 88.5, while Popyrin’s total is 100.
It’s rarely that simple with Norrie though and having made the semis here last year he’ll feel that he’s getting his game back together at the right time for the hard court summer and Popyrin needs to play his best to progress.
Instead, I’ll take a small chance on Miomir Kecmanovic, who has been impressive lately and has the game to really test out the movement and backhand of Taylor Fritz.
Predictably, Fritz wasn’t tested at all by Kevin King, but Kecmanovic can work the angles and find the backhand down the line far better than the likes of King, and we’ll see if Fritz’s pretty average defensive skills can cope.
On his day, if he’s serving big and hitting his forehand at his best Fritz could overpower someone like Kecmanovic, but he’ll have to play a near-perfect match to do it and in the form that Kecmanovic has shown of late this could well be a big test for Fritz.
The American doesn’t have a good record when priced up in the 1.40 to 1.59 range, losing six of his last 10 main level matches on mainly hard courts (one on grass) and he’s just 9-8 all time on hard courts in this price range.
Indeed, in his last 11 in this price range Fritz has won only one in straight sets – and that was against clay exponent Laslo Djere.
This could be another tricky one for Fritz and either Kecmanovic on the handicap or the over games or sets look the bets here, with over 2.5 sets at 2.38.
Bernard Tomic edged past Matt Ebden in the expected lacklustre affair in which Ebden managed to be the one on the day who wanted it the least, with 10 double faults being a big factor in that one.
Ebden actually won more points on first and second serve than Tomic, but Bernie was +11 in the aces to double faults ratio, while Ebden was -7, and that was pretty much the difference in a forgettable encounter.
Bernie now faces another Aussie in De Minaur on Friday and it’s hard to see Tomic coming out on top in effort and application against the energetic youngster.
That’ll be a first meeting and you can never really count Tomic out on ability, but it’s hard to see him doing enough to beat De Minaur, but the odds on Bernie, which suggest that Klahn had more chance of beating ADM than Tomic does, are a little insulting.
Best Bet
0.5 points win over 2.5 sets in Kecmanovic/Fritz at 2.38
