The final Grand Slam of the year has arrived as the best of the best and some aiming to reach that status head to the wonderful city of New York for the US Open at Flushing Meadows.
For me this is the best Slam of the year. Nobody wins here without being at their best and the American atmosphere both in the air and in the stands makes this one of the best sporting events on the calendar.
Rarely does the men’s event not deliver a wonderful story. Andy Murray finally won his first Grand Slam here as did Juan Martin del Potro before that and Marin Cilic was the latest to break his major duck in this tournament. Putting it simply it is here where the heavyweights are most vulnerable.
Novak Djokovic goes into the tournament as the favourite but at 6/5 he’s plenty short enough. Djokovic is clearly the best player in the world right now but the fact he’s only won this title once even though he’s been the best for a while has to be a concern.
Another concern would come from the fact that he failed in the final of the two Masters events warming up for this tournament and in those events he struggled to put away relatively moderate opponents so maybe the world number one isn’t firing on absolutely all of his cylinders right now. A potential quarter final draw against Rafael Nadal isn’t ideal either.
Interestingly both Djokovic’s main rivals have landed a Masters title in the lead up to this tournament. Andy Murray won in Montreal while Roger Federer won in Cincinnati. Both men really impressed in their wins and I think they are the leading players going into this tournament.
It has to be said Murray has been done no favours with the draw. Landing Nick Kyrgios in the opening round is less than ideal but even the potential to run into Stan Wawrinka in the quarter final is no walk in the park even though the Swiss looks a little off his top form since that spat with Kyrgios recently.
Roger Federer has no bye himself. He has a dangerous but ultimately vulnerable opponent in Leonardo Mayer in the first round but what I like about Federer’s draw is his dominance over the rest of his potential opponents.
Tomas Berdych is well known to wilt against the big guns and if Federer gets to the semi-final he has a 16-3 lead over Wawrinka and has won his last 10 sets against Murray including in the last four in Cincinnati a couple of weeks ago.
A concern would certainly be that it is over 5 years since Federer won a Slam but he was the winner in waiting here 12 months ago until he ran into arguably the best serving performance of all time from Cilic. If anything Federer is looking better now than then and he’s my main pick this week.
Usually I like to take a couple of big priced punts but all my favoured candidates for that this year have all landed horrible draws or I don’t see their section opening up enough long term for the value to exist so with that in mind I’ll head to the side markets to continue my outright bets.
The second quarter is often the interesting portion of any draw and with Kei Nishikori the leading seed in it that remains the case here. It is particularly interesting this year because it also houses the defending champion Marin Cilic and I fancy Cilic to come through this section.
I would have backed Cilic outright but his record against Djokovic is beyond awful and try as I might I just can’t find anyone to beat the top seed in the first quarter so Cilic is likely to need to beat the world number one to make the final – a tough ask.
Of course Nadal could topple Djokovic if at his best but the evidence of 2015 so far suggests he’s far from his best and is no certainty to even make it to a quarter final showdown with the man he has beaten twice to land this title.
All that said I’ll take Cilic to win a quarter I like him in. I like him for a few reasons. Two of the main seeds in it – Dimitrov and Ferrer are hugely vulnerable. Dimitrov has shown no form for a while and Ferrer has only played one match since the French Open – a defeat to Marcos Baghdatis in Nottingham. It is possible Ferrer doesn’t even turn up here.
I really fancy Cilic to make it to the quarter final where he’s likely to be playing Nishikori in a repeat of last year’s final. The Croat is likely to have plenty of confidence in that match up and were he to face Tsonga that wouldn’t be an impossible task either. At 4/1 I think that’s a decent price on Cilic’s title defence going at least to the semi-final.
Staying in that second quarter and I’m going to take advantage of Sportingbet’s ‘to reach the last 16 market’. I’ve already mentioned Ferrer is going to be there for the taking if he shows up and the first seed he is down to face is Jeremy Chardy.
Chardy is going along nicely at the minute. He had a run to the semi-final in Montreal a few weeks ago and apart from maybe a potentially dangerous leftie in the shape of Martin Klizan there’s nothing opposing him before Ferrer. I don’t see Ferrer being an issue and nobody else he could play in the last 32 should be so the 7/4 on the Frenchman just making the last 16 looks far too big.
Back R.Federer to win US Open for a 3/10 stake at 5.00 with Betway
Back M.Cilic to win 2nd Quarter for a 3/10 stake at 5.00 with Bet365
Back J.Chardy to reach the last 16 for a 4/10 stake at 2.75 with Sportingbet
