THERE was some cruel luck around the grounds of the Billie Jean King National Tennis Centre on Wednesda, as our underdog Jason Kubler twisted his ankle when very competitive against Taylor Fritz.
The luckless Kubler, whose career has been plagued by injury problems was looking to get on top of a tired looking Fritz when he went over horribly on his ankle and while he tried to carry on he clearly couldn’t put much weight on it (he later went to hospital).
Then we saw Paulo Lorenzi blow a 4-1 (triple break point for 5-1) lead in set one against Guido Pella, which effectively lost us the +1.5 sets wager on the Italian in that one.
Indeed, of those on the shortlist on Wednesday; there were two winners (Verdasco and Basilashvili), two final set losers (Seppi and Jarry), one retirement (Kubler) and two straight sets losses (Lorenzi and Simon). I chose the two 0-3 losers and the one that retired.
Conditions
At some point today the weather is set to break, but up until around 19:00 local time (midnight UK) it’s still set to be very humid and hot, with poor air quality, so another tough test for those scheduled to play up until then at least.
Shortlist
Mikhail Kukushkin, Marcos Baghdatis and Gael Monfils all make the shortlist of potential underdog winners on Thursday, while I also like one ‘no tie breaks’ bet and an over games wager.
Joao Sousa vs Pablo Carreno Busta
This match will be a very return oriented affair, with PCB breaking serve 26.2% of the time in his last 12 months on outdoor hard at main level and in his 15-match US Open career that mark is currently 30.5%.
Sousa also breaks serve often here in New York, with a 24.9% mark in his 11 career matches and both men have played only 0.09 tie breaks per set here in New York in their careers.
The pair haven’t clashed since 2015 when PCB beat Sousa in Winston-Salem, but it’s a match-up that looks a tough one for Sousa, with PCB just doing everything that bit better and highly motivated here to defend semi finals points.
PCB is a good 12% better than Sousa on the 12-month hold/break numbers on outdoor hard and 16.2% better just at the US Open, while Sousa is 9-20 on this North American hard court swing in the last 10 years.
He’s lost 12 of his last 16 and played just three tie breaks in his last 40 sets on this swing.
The next two are certainly risky ones, but I have to give Marcos Baghdatis and Mikhail Kukushkin good chances as underdogs in these conditions against Lucas Pouille and Hyeon Chung respectively.
Pouille has been nowhere near the player he threatened to be a year or so ago lately and in hot, humid conditions against a player like Baghdatis, who loves this weather he looks worth taking on as a 1.45 chance.
The Frenchman has lost 10 times when priced up as favourite since early March, including three of the last four, and he’s lost four of his last nine completed matches as a sub-1.50 favourite.
It’s Baghdatis that has the better hold/break numbers in the last 12 months on outdoor hard at main level (106.6 to 101.8) and he should handle the heat better, but with these two a lot depends on their first serve percentage.
Both average around 56% in the last year, but Baggy hasn’t hit 55% in his last four matches (42% against GGL in Winston-Salem), and he’ll need to be better today.
Chung struggled badly against Ricardas Berankis (and possibly the extreme heat) in round one and was 4-6, 2-5 down before Berankis hit the wall in the brutal conditions and ended up retiring.
The Korean has been very hit and miss since returning from his latest injury and the flat hitting of Kukushkin could easily cause Chung similar problems to those he encountered against Berankis.
Kuku has played well in New York on numerous occasions, beating David Ferrer and Grigor Dimitrov as a big underdog both times and taking Marin Cilic to five sets as well.
The Kazakh tends to start well, winning the opening set in New York 10 times in his last 12 matches here and some of that is due to his flat hitting putting opponents off their rhythm early on.
I like the set one to Kukushkin at 2.70 here.
Gael Monfils vs Kei Nishikori
Nishikori began the tournament very well indeed against Maximilian Marterer, but let’s not get carried away, as that was a favourable match-up versus a leftie that doesn’t return well.
Indeed, if we look at Kei’s results against southpaws on hard courts and exclude Nadal he’s 32-5 win/loss in his main level career and lost only twice in the last five years.
This clash tonight at around midnight UK time (19:00 local) on the new Armstrong Court is a very different match-up and there’s some value on Monfils here if you’re brave enough to risk the mercurial talents of the Frenchman on a show court at a major.
The pair have fought out some battles in recent years, with all three of their last three clashes ending in final set tie breaks: Montreal 2017 (Monfils won saving four match points), Rio Olympics 2016 (Monfils blew a 6-3 lead in the final set tie break to lose), Miami 2016 (Monfils blew five match points to lose).
If we look at the stats of those hard court matches it’s Monfils that’s held serve more often (83% compared to 79.2%) and for me this 2018 version of Nishikori is not the same player we’ve seen in the past, with his post-wrist surgery forehand not the same weapon it once was.
Indeed, he hasn’t beaten a top-20 ranked player on a hard court since the very start of 2017 and he’s 5-7 against them on all surfaces since coming back from that wrist injury.
He’s won only two of his last 15 matches against top-20 ranked opposition on hard courts going back three years and four of his five top-20 wins this year have come on clay (the other against a sulky Kyrgios at Wimbledon).
Monfils isn’t top-20 right now due to his own injury problems, but he’s certainly that level when he’s fit and his hold/break stats on outdoor hard in the last 12 months and here at the US Open are better than Kei’s.
Monfils is 103 win/loss and with a hold/break total of 105.5, while Kei is 5-5 and has a total of 96.5, and in New York’s main draw Monfils is on 111.4 hold/break (25-10 win/loss) while Nishikori’s on 107.3 (19-8 win/loss).
Gael’s lack of matches due to injury means he’s a 2.85 underdog today, but on a show court in New York in prime time he’ll love this and he played well enough in round one to suggest he can go well here.
Expect the unexpected in this one given their dramatic encounters in the past, but Monfils +1.5 sets at 2.05 looks the wager.
The other one I’m tempted by today is the over games in Marin Cilic’s clash with the improving Hubert Hurkacz, which is scheduled for (not before) 22:00 UK time on Grandstand.
Cilic was rather fortunate that Marius Copil somehow managed to lose their opening set in round one, having led it 5-1, dropping serve three times in a row to lose it 5-7.
The Romanian retired a little over a set later and Cilic admitted that he was having trouble controlling the ball in the hot and humid conditions.
Hurkacz has been playing well on the hard courts this season and his big serving, big hitting game suits the conditions in New York.
The Pole has compiled a 108.5 hold/break total in his 15 matches in the main draw and qualies of main level outdoor hard court tournaments in 2018 (9-6 win/loss) and only a choke stopped him from beating Marton Fucsovics in Cincy after he’d beaten Ivo Karlovic and Ryan Harrison in qualies.
He took a set off Cilic on clay at the French Open this year too and Cilic will do well to win this in fewer than 33.5 games, with the 3-1 win also appealing at 3.65.
Elsewhere, Jan-Lennard Struff played an unusually clean and error-free match against Tim Smyczek in round one, hitting only eight unforced errors and handling the heat surprisingly well.
On that form he’s got a great chance of ending the career of Julien Benneteau, who had to battle hard in the heat to win in his opening match and who said of his next round: “I pushed back my retirement, say 48 hours, because frankly, it will be complicated on Thursday! “
Too many times we’ve seen Struff play well one round an awfully the next (again in Winston-Salem last week) to back him at 1.58 though and it’s no surprise to learn that he’s only 4-3 win/loss as a sub-1.60 favourite in his career on outdoor hard.
In December 2020 we sadly 
