I think it’ll be a while before I back Denis Kudla again after a second weak performance in the space of a few weeks carrying my admittedly small wager on him against Lucas Pouille on Monday.
Kudla was woeful on first serve, making only 48% of them in the match and still he should have won set two after Pouille had choked serving for the match and Kudla went on to hold two set points at 6-4 in the ensuing breaker.
Typically, it was the other underdog I mentioned, Miomir Kecmanovic, who won in straight sets at odds against versus Felix Auger-Aliassime, who managed to serve even worse than Kudla (47% and 10 double faults in nine service games).
Even more frustratingly, I chose the wrong bet in hindsight to oppose Matteo Berrettini with, as the Italian was beaten by Juan Ignacio Londero and in one game short of 22.5 games.
Then, after no break point chances in the first 10 games of the match, Londero Sonego was broken by Nick Kyrgios to foil the tie breaks bet in that match. A rather frustrating day.
We’re set for a bit of disruption on Tuesday in Mason if the forecast is correct, with thunderstorms in the area all day, but they may miss the venue area of course.
It will be very humid though at around 70% humidity to go with 30C heat, so it will be tough.
I’ll be honest and say that this doesn’t look the most appealing of days from a betting perspective, with many of the matches clouded by potential injury and other fitness issues.
Of the remaining round one matches, Fabio Fognini, Gael Monfils, Frances Tiafoe, Daniil Medvedev, and Taylor Fritz are all questionable for various reasons and it might be the case that we have to take a bit of a flyer today.
Fognini doesn’t look fit enough to do much this week [he’s since withdrawn] and neither does Monfils, which is a shame as he was on my shortlist of players to back against Tiafoe.
On all the stats and also for me on play style Gael Monfils looks the likely winner against Frances Tiafoe, but Lamonf, like Fognini, doesn’t appear to be fit enough based on his ongoing ankle issue that cropped up again in Montreal.
Tiafoe has had injury problems of his own, too, pulling out of Montreal due to a foot injury he sustained in Washington DC and given how Gael tends to exaggerate his injuries I’m tempted to take him as an underdog here, but it’s very risky.
Taylor Fritz had his thigh strapped up and looked understandably jaded against Hubert Hurkacz last week in Montreal and after back-to-back finals in Atlanta and Los Cabos perhaps that wasn’t much of a surprise.
He may have recovered by now, but his match is another tricky one against a David Goffin who seems to have had his brittle confidence knocked again and could be anything on the day.
The Belgian has lost consecutive matches against lefties on hard courts for the first time since 2013 since his Wimbledon meltdown against Novak Djokovic and I couldn’t back him as favourite against an opponent who’s been in much consistent form than Goffin this season.
Instead I think we have to take a chance on Kyle Edmund at a tempting price against Daniil Medvedev.
This one is mainly about fatigue on the part of Medvedev, but also about his mindset and how he’ll shape up after taking a hammering from Rafael Nadal in the Montreal final.
Losing in back-to-back finals is hard enough on the psyche (and I speak from experience there, although it’s more like back-to-back-to-back-to-back… for me) but also tough on the body and Medvedev looked cooked by the end of the Nadal loss.
Given that the US Open starts in 13 days time Medvedev would be well advised to take a leaf out of Nadal’s book and rest up a bit ahead of New York and that may well be on his mind during this fast turnaround match.
Medvedev is the same price today that he was last week against Edmund when the Russian won pretty easily in the end, but given how much more tired he’ll be this week and how much more rest Edmund will have had that price looks short.
Edmund remains a bit of an enigma, playing very well against another previous week’s finalist when he beat Nick Kyrgios in straight sets in Montreal, and then starting poorly next up versus Medvedev and never recovering, tailing off badly at the end.
There really was a massive difference between the level of Edmund in the Kyrgios match compared to one day later versus Medvedev and we can’t be sure which Edmund will turn up.
He may not need to be at his very best though if Medvedev is leggy, which he may well be and at the same price as last week Edmund looks about the best option on Tuesday – especially if it’s going to be as humid and energy sapping as the forecast suggests.
Elsewhere in round one I couldn’t be betting on a match between Fernando Verdasco and Benoit Paire or Andrey Rublev and Nikoloz Basilashvili, as either match could be anything given the nature of the four protagonists.
Speaking of players looking very uncertain out there at the moment Grigor Dimitrov has lost 11 of his last 12 sets against Stan Wawrinka, who beat him last week in Montreal (for the fourth time in a little over a year) and the Bulgarian looks well down on his level of old.
He won the title here in Cincy as recently as 2017 and maybe a return here will give him a jolt, but he’s hard to back even as a 3.25 underdog in his current funk.
Diego Schwartzman should be too strong for Laslo Djere on a hard court, while of the round two matches Sam Querrey on his best serving day may well cause problems for Novak Djokovic in these conditions.
It looks a tricky day and just one bet for me on day two.
Best Bet
0.5 points win Edmund to beat Medvedev at 2.60
