The first round of the US Open is in the books and it was a round with a number of surprises, withdrawals, retirements and solid performances and we can expect much more of the same in the second round which begins in New York on Wednesday.
From a betting point of view this tournament has been horrendous for me so far. A couple of hard luck losers on the opening two days have left me in the red for the event to date but there is plenty of time to turn it around. Hopefully players I back don’t surrender two set leads like Dustin Brown did on Tuesday for the remainder of the event.
Wednesday isn’t the easiest day to assess. A number of players who have produced major first round upsets are back in action and with the heat becoming a real factor already in the tournament you just wonder whether they can back up their efforts or if the big wins have taken the stuffing out of them so I’m going to play safe and just go with two picks.
Fabio Fognini hasn’t been having the best of times of it in the lead up to this tournament. At his best he is very erratic and inconsistent anyway so it is no surprise that he has lost in the first round of the two hard court events leading up to this tournament. He also lost early at Wimbledon and I suspect he could go that way here too.
He faces Pablo Cuevas of Uruguay in the second round on Wednesday and the South American looks a good price to win that match. Although he hasn’t been winning too many matches in the Masters series he has to run into the big names a lot earlier than Fognini does so we can allow him that. Despite facing the big names he pushes them all the way unlike Fognini. We know Fognini is very temperamental and if Cuevas gets off to a good start he could run away with this one.
In the women’s draw I took on Eugenie Bouchard in the opening round and I’m going to take her on again. I’m not convinced that one win has got her back on track and it doesn’t surprise me that she’s the outsider in this match. I didn’t think she played all that well against Alison Riske, her opponent just wasn’t up to it on the day.
Bouchard goes up against Polona Hercog on Wednesday for a place in the last 32. Hercog had a good straight sets win over Zarina Diyas on Monday and that should have given her a good deal of confidence. She has been playing well coming into the tournament with a win over Ekaterina Makarova particularly eye catching and if that form is with her in this match she should take care of a bang out of touch and visibly low in confidence Canadian.
Back P.Cuevas to beat F.Fognini for a 3/10 stake at 2.75 with Ladbrokes
Back P.Hercog to beat E.Bouchard for a 4/10 stake at 1.91 with Betfair
