We made a handy profit again on day five of the US Open, thanks to a fairly comfortable win for underdog Alex De Minaur over Kei Nishikori and the gnarly veteran Paulo Lorenzi fighting to not one, but two, tie breaks against Stan Wawrinka.
On another day it could have been a hat-trick, as Feli Lopez might have won all of the first three sets against Daniil Medvedev: serving for set one, winning set two and having the first set point in set three.
Moving on to day six on Saturday and we’re set for fair conditions, with 26C temperatures and humidity of around 30-40%, and a slight wind.
I took on three bets yesterday, but Saturday looks tougher, and not a great deal leaps off the page at first glance.
The elite players tend to get most of the luck that’s going in majors and Rafael Nadal has had some this tournament already, being handed a walkover by the brittle bodied Thanasi Kokkinakis already and now he faces an opponent coming off consecutive five setters.
And the fact that the player in question is another injury-prone sort in Hyeon Chung suggests that Nadal is likely to have a big fitness advantage in this one.
Chung has already had to come from two sets down against a Spanish lefty one in this tournament and surely Nadal will come out on top here.
The other high seed in Q4 may have a tougher time of it though, with Alexander Zverev seemingly not capable these days of sticking to the play style that got him to number three in the world.
Zverev is still able to do it in patches, but far too often for his team’s liking I’m sure he creeps back into negative mode and retreats back behind the baseline, pushing for all he’s worth.
His serving prowess gets him through most matches and it probably will again versus the fairly limited Aljaz Bedene, but if Zverev goes negative this one could turn into a turgid battle.
Bedene should have been beaten by Benoit Paire, who led the Slovenian by two sets and also wasted three match points, but that match shows that Bedene has to be beaten and won’t beat himself (unlike Paire).
Zverev still hasn’t won 50% of his second serve points in any match since beating Federico Delbonis ion clay in Hamburg eight matches ago and he’s only won 29% of his matches at majors in straight sets, so the 3.65 about him winning this one 3-1 looks a fair option.
Probably the ‘popcorn match’ of the day takes place, fittingly, late on Ashe between Nick Kyrgios and Andrey Rublev and the Russian is a tempting proposition here.
Having previously lost seven of eight matches against the big servers in my database Rublev has now won four of his last five against them, but he’s clearly at a serving disadvantage against someone like Kyrgios.
That means Rublev will have to be on peak form off the ground – or hope that NK has another one of his frequent crazy days – and so it’s not a betting option for me with Rublev a 2.38 chance. I’d want a bigger price, really.
I did like the opening price of evens on Gael Monfils against Denis Shapovalov, but that’s long gone and Monfils is now around the 1.75 mark to take down the Canadian, which he ought to.
Monfils is some way ahead on the 12-month stats on outdoor hard at main level, with an impressive 13-6 win/loss mark and a 116.3 service hold/break total, compared to 16-10 and 105.6 for Shapovalov.
If we look at their last 10 matches each on this surface versus the current top-25 we find that Monfils is also ahead here, with a hold/break total of 98.7, while Shapo is down at 90.7.
Monfils versus left-handers on outdoor hard at main level has won 21 of his 33 matches and recorded a hold/break total of 107.4, so there’s a lot to like about Gael’s chances here.
The negative for me with Gael here is the timing of the match in the evening on Armstrong on a Saturday night and he’s been known to spend more time trying to entertain the crowd than on winning the match in these situations before.
Monfils for me here and the prices look more or less right now. Shame we missed the evens on the Frenchman though.
But I’ll take a chance on Alexei Popyrin to cause problems for Matteo Berrettini instead for small stakes.
The Aussie looks to be developing into one of those players that prefer the big stage and he has the power to really test out the defences of Berrettini on a hard court.
Berrettini backers at 1.34 are taking a bit of a chance in the sense that the Italian has done very little on hard courts so far in his career and his stats are no better than Popyrin’s as yet on outdoor hard at main level.
Berrettini is 8-14 win/loss and with a 97.7 hold/break total, while Popyrin is 8-10 and 97.6, so very little difference in those numbers.
Clearly, Berrettini has had more success in general than Popyrin at main level so far, but Popyrin has the power and ability to come to the net to finish points off than either Gasquet or Thompson had against the Italian.
Indeed, Thompson should have done better against Berrettini, having served for set one at 5-3, 30-15 and led 5-3 in the set two tie breaker, as well as winning set three.
Popyrin impressed in coming from a set and a break down to defeat Mikhail Kukushkin to win in four and this one could well be closer than odds suggest, so +4.5 games on Popyrin is my bet here.
Marin Cilic has held serve 95.6% of the time against John Isner in their 11-match career series and 96.2% of the time on outdoor hard alone, but his form still looks shaky and Isner could have his chances in what looks likely to be a lengthy encounter.
Best Bets
0.5 points win Popyrin +4.5 games to beat Berrettini at 1.95
0.5 points win Zverev to beat Bedene 3-1 at 3.65
