The second day of the ATP Cincinnati event is a much busier one than the opening one as the Western & Southern Open really kicks into life in the second Masters 1000 event in as many weeks on Tuesday.
We have to wait until later in the week for the top eight seeds to enter the fray but the remainder of the first round gets played out on what should be a decent day of tennis in Ohio over the course of the play on Tuesday.
Center Court
There are just the two ATP matches on the main court on Tuesday placed in amongst a load of WTA games. We have to wait for the first two matches to be completed by the women before we get to the first of the men’s games. When it comes along to close out the day session we will see two American players on show as Ben Shelton takes on the equally big serving Reilly Opelka. The men then open up the night session on the main court too as two more American players take to the court when one of our outright bets, Taylor Fritz, goes up against Brandon Nakashima.
Grandstand
We have three matches over on the Grandstand court on Tuesday with the first of those being two big improvers throughout 2024 as Zhizhen Zhang meets the big serving French player Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard to get the day up and running. When they are done we have another men’s match on court and one which is likely to get plenty of attention as it involves the home star Frances Tiafoe who will be looking to find some form ahead of the US Open. He meets Alejandro Davidovich Fokina. We then have to wait until the second match in the night session for the other game to come along and when it does the home qualifier Brandon Holt meets Arthur Fils for a spot in round two.
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Outside Courts
The remainder of the ATP matches on Tuesday come from the Stadium 3 and Court 4 parts of the grounds so those who have a grounds pass or the relevant streams on TV will have plenty of tennis to watch. Lorenzo Musetti is the big name on Court 3 and he faces an interesting clash with Nicolas Jarry. Marcos Giron and Tallon Griekspoor are others to watch on that court while Ugo Humbert is the sole seed on show on Court 4 when he takes on Jordan Thompson. Jiri Lehecka, Alejandro Tabilo and Miomir Kecmanovic are among the others who will be looking to make it into the second round on this court.
Betting
There are a couple of bets which catch my eye over the course of the second day of action with the first of them being the one between Alex Michelsen and Tallon Griekspoor where I think we could see a really close match. If you look at the respective form guide you would probably go with the American, who should be full of confidence having come through qualifying, but the Griekspoor hard court form is better than it looks because twice on this surface he has lost to Jannik Sinner and in another event he went down to Alexander Zverev while Alexander Bublik got him in two tiebreak sets in Dubai. On another day the Dutchman could have gone better with an ounce more luck or a kinder draw. It doesn’t take a huge amount for Griekspoor to get involved in lengthy sets. Since the Australian Open he has played 11 matches on a hard court and gone to a tiebreak in 12 sets and 7-5 in five more so of the 27 sets he has played on this surface 17 of them have gone to a twelfth game and beyond. Michelsen is no stranger to extended sets either. He played seven sets in Washington and three of them were 75 or 76 while he played a 75 set against Kei Nishikori in Canada last week. These two met in Miami with Griekspoor winning 76 67 64. There looks to be plenty of meat on this bone to contain more than 23.5 games.
The other bet that I like comes in the first of the two men’s matches on the main court where two big serving American players collide as Ben Shelton takes on Reilly Opelka and I don’t think anyone would be overly surprised if this one contains tiebreaks and the odds against on the first set to go the distance just looks too big to me. Opelka rarely gets into the opposing service game without some help from the server and he has the sort of big bomb on this surface which gets him so many free points that I expect rallies and points won on the opposition serve to be at a premium. This is the first time the pair have faced off against each other so they might need a few games to work each other out and while that is going on we can meander tidily into a first set tiebreak.
Tips
Back A.Michelsen vs T.Griekspoor – Over 23.5 games for a 3/10 stake at 2.00 with Coral
Back B.Shelton vs R.Opelka – First set tiebreak for a 3/10 stake at 2.20 with Coral
