We’re back at Flushing Meadows for the last major of the season and conditions for day one are expected to be fairly reasonable by US Open standards, with 24C heat and around 40-55% humidity, but it does look set to be pretty windy (20-30kph gusts).
As is the case in all of the majors we don’t tend to see many underdog winners here in New York, although it is the best one of the four in that regard.
In the last seven years there have been an average of 26% underdog winners at the US Open and round one in the same timeframe has seen an average of 28% of the betting underdogs win.
In the last three years though that figure has fallen to 22% in round one and 24% in all rounds.
As far as tie breaks are concerned, 46% of the matches at the US Open have featured at least one tie break (51% last year) in the last seven years and round one alone has seen 45% of its matches in that timeframe feature at least one breaker.
On day one the players in action that have struggled to win matches in the main draw of the US Open include:
Denis Kudla: 2-5 win/loss
Dusan Lajovic: 2-4 win/loss
Steve Darcis: 5-9 win/loss
Pierre-Hugues Herbert: 1-4 win/loss
Marton Fucsovics: 0-3 win/loss
Yoshihito Nishioka: 1-4 win/loss
Ricardas Berankis: 3-6 win/loss
Pablo Cuevas: 4-9 win/loss
Bradley Klahn: 2-5 win/loss
And the last name in that list, Bradley Klahn, may well have to work very hard indeed if he wants to get past the stubborn resilience of Thiago Monteiro, who actually has better stats than Klahn on this surface lately.
Looking at their last 10 matches in the main draw of outdoor hard court main level events, Monteiro, despite losing seven of his 10 (Klahn has lost eight of his last 10) has held serve 82.4% of the time and broken 13.2% of the time for a respectable total of 95.6.
That’s pretty decent for a player who plies his trade mainly on clay and it’s better than Klahn, who’s held serve only 79.8% of the time and broken a measly 5.6% of the time (85.4 total), so we can see where Klahn’s problem lies.
Monteiro is no pushover on faster surfaces, as Kei Nishikori found at Wimbledon this summer, winning only by a score of 6-4, 7-6, 6-4 and Karen Khachanov beat Monteiro at the same venue 3-6, 7-6, 7-6, 7-5.
The last time he was here in New York’s main draw Monteiro led Malek Jaziri 2-1 before losing in a fifth and in Cincy a few weeks ago Monteiro lost in a final set tie break to Alexei Popyrin, so I can’t see this being easy for Klahn by any means.
Monteiro only faced one break point against Klahn in an expected win over the American on clay when they met at Challenger level last season and Klahn has faced only one fellow leftie at main level since the 2014 French Open.
Only twice in his 16 main level matches against fellow lefties has Monteiro lost without winning at least a set (11-5 win/loss) and although they were mainly on clay either the overs or Monteiro +3.5 games look like decent options here.
Another one who likes the clay but looks like he’s going to be decent on faster surfaces as well is Juan Ignacio Londero, who Sam Querrey will have to play well against to win as easily as odds of 1.20 suggest that he will.
Querrey has usually struggled at the US Open – as a lot of the big servers have (see below) – and he’s only been past the fourth round on one occasion and that was in 2017 when he coming off the back of a Wimbledon semi final and a title in Los Cabos after that.
Londero played very well against Matteo Berrettini (as I suggested he might but chose the wrong bet to oppose the Italian with) in Cincy and after that he was far from disgraced against Roger Federer the next round.
Indeed, Londero won the same number of points on first serve as Fed that day (77%) and won 50% on his second serve, while being broken only twice by the Swiss maestro, so there are good signs for Londero on hard courts.
Yes, Berrettini and Federer were a tad rusty perhaps, but his serve is decent, forehand very aggressive and he moves well, as well as being tenacious and not one to give up, even if being outclassed (see Nadal match at the French Open).
Querrey has been his usual up and down self since Wimbledon and after labouring past Roberto Carballes Baena he was beaten by Andrey Rublev in Winston-Salem as tournament favourite.
I’m happy to take the +5.5 games on Londero here at around evens and here’s the small list of huge servers and their weak records at the US Open:
Sam Querrey: Once past R4 in 12 attempts
Milos Raonic: Yet to better R4 in seven appearances
Ivo Karlovic: Losing 13-14 record and one appearance in R4 in 14 tries
John Isner: Twice past R4 in 12 attempts
I could also add Nick Kyrgios to this list (6-6 and never past round three)
The one that has done better here is Kevin Anderson, but even he has only bettered round 4 twice in nine attempts, so perhaps the heat and humidity here and longer format aren’t helpful to the really big guys.
Elsewhere on day one the underdogs who look like they could hold some value on day one include: Adrian Mannarino, Jaume Munar, Fabio Fognini, Phillip Kohlschreiber, and Nicolas Jarry.
Of these I’m happy to take a chance on Nicolas Jarry, who has a good record so far in his career against big servers and he has a fair chance against a Milos Raonic that hasn’t been fully fit for some considerable time now.
Raonic was last seen retiring with a back problem in his home event in Montreal and we really are guessing as to how fit the Canadian is at the moment and generally, really, with Raonic regularly out injured these days.
As I said above the really big servers don’t have great records here in New York and in any case Jarry has shown that he can give as good as he gets against them, beating Marin Cilic (as a 5.98 shot) on a fast hard court in Shanghai last season.
He also played well here a year ago, leading John Isner by two sets to one before losing the fourth in a breaker and the fifth 6-4.
The only other loss he’s had against a big server was in a final set tie break against Marius Copil at altitude in Madrid this season and he’s also beaten Matteo Berrettini and Reilly Opelka on the clay.
On his best form you’d expect Raonic to be a bit too much for Jarry on hard, but we haven’t seen Raonic’s best form for a very long time now and he looks vulnerable here against an opponent with firepower of his own.
Of the others Fabio Fognini has a pretty good record against big servers lately, winning five of his last seven against the ones in my database, but the worry with him versus Reilly Opelka is fitness.
Fognini was struggling in Montreal and pulled out of Cincy with an ankle injury, so we’re guessing a bit as to whether or not he’s fit for action over a possible five sets.
Adrian Mannarino has been playing some decent stuff lately and the lefty can potentially cause problems for Dan Evans, who’s looked a bit jaded recently and who’s lost six of his last seven main level matches against lefties.
Philipp Kohlschreiber’s poor form lately has made him a backable price against the very inconsistent Lucas Pouille, with the German admitting that he “was nagged by little injuries in the last months, that didn’t allow me to compete at highest level.”
Only Kohli will know if he’s now fit or not, but Pouille at 1.41 looks very short against an opponent who is 24-15 win/loss at the Open and with a 106 hold/break total here in the main draw.
Jaume Munar has been struggling for confidence lately, but he’ll give it his all here and Dominik Koepfer will have to play well to beat the stubborn Spaniard.
Koepfer has had some good results lately, but he’s still only won two matches at main level in his career and 1.40 seems rather short against Munar, who I remember very well a year ago toughed it out against Ruben Bemelmans in a match he had no right to win, but did.
Surely Koepfer will be nervous and the German looks a poor price in this one.
Others that look a tad short on their current form include Dusan Lajovic, Cam Norrie, Borna Coric, Damir Dzumhur and Grigor Dimitrov.
So, lots of options on day one and by the look of it better ones than day two and I’ll take the following wagers:
Best Bets
1 point win Monteiro +3.5 games to beat Klahn at 1.95
1 point win Londero +5.5 games to beat Querrey at 1.96
0.5 points win Jarry to beat Raonic at 3.50
