The US Open moves into the third round stage on Friday with both the men and the women starting out on the round of 32. I always feel that a slam starts here. This is the first time two seeds can face each other and there are some great matches on the schedule in New York.
Thursday was another dramatic day at the Open with Andy Murray forced to go five sets to overcome Adrian Mannarino and we also saw the longest women’s match in US Open history on what was another extremely hot and humid day at Flushing.
Places in the second week of the tournament are up for grabs on Friday so those involved are likely to be giving it everything they’ve got to make sure they survive the weekend.
Friday is also the day the first of my pre-tournament bets runs for me. Jeremy Chardy faces David Ferrer in a match that if he wins he will seal the 7/4 punt on him to make the last 16. Needless to say I’m happy to let that run without getting involved in that match again.
There are matches on the men’s side of the draw that I do like from a betting point of view on Friday though and the first of those sees the Frenchman Benoit Paire taking on Tommy Robredo of Spain.
These two have met on three previous occasions with Paire leading the head to head 2-1 and both of his wins have come in the last couple of months so that bodes well for the man from France. I think he’s good value to win again here. We know he’s in good nick after the way he took care of Kei Nishikori in the opening round so he has plenty going for him.
Tommy Robredo has had a few real battles with Andy Murray in the last 12 months or so but you’d do well to successfully argue that he’s anywhere near where he was a few years ago and to my eyes he’s vulnerable. It might take a while to conclude but for me Paire is good value in this one.
Another match which could take a while to settle is the one between Milos Raonic and Feliciano Lopez. Whichever way I look at this match it just seems to have five sets written all over it. They’ve played six times and three of them have gone the distance including in Australia at the start of the year while they also went four sets here in 2013.
Both men have their huge serve which earns them a lot of free points and both are quite limited with their ground games so I’m expecting a couple of tie-breaks here at the very least and a generally tight match where nothing is given to the opponent. The games line here is over 42.5 and that doesn’t look high enough to me.
One match where the line is high enough is the Jo Wilfried Tsonga match. He takes on the Ukraine player Sergiy Stakhovsky on the Grandstand court. These two have met four times with Tsonga having won all four and he has only dropped one set in that time so this looks a good match up for him.
Tsonga was very impressive against Granollers in the previous round and looks in excellent form. Stakhovsky has had to go four sets in both his matches so far which is far from ideal in the conditions the players have had in the first week of the tournament so he could be there for the taking. I fancy the Frenchman to get this done in straight sets so the 35.5 games line looks a few too high.
I took Rafael Nadal on in the first round and annoyingly he covered the handicap by one game but it was only a set of inexperience from his opponent that allowed that. Nadal didn’t look brilliantly great in the second round either and now on Friday he faces his toughest test on paper this week in the night session.
He takes on the Italian maverick Fabio Fognini who after losing the first set in his opening match has won six straight sets since. Fognini has a couple of clay court wins over Nadal in 2015 which is almost unheard of given Nadal’s dominance on the dirt so the Italian has to fancy his chances here.
Nadal has a win over Fognini, also on clay, but that was only 7-5 7-5 so the Italian has clearly troubled the Spanish legend over their meetings this year and I fully expect him to trouble him again. He may not have the consistency to beat Nadal on this stage but I’d be very surprised if he doesn’t stay within 5.5 games.
In the women’s draw the match of the day is the one between the rising star Belinda Bencic and Venus Williams. Bencic shot to prominence in this tournament 12 months ago when she made the quarter finals and she kept herself in the headlines when she beat Serena Williams last month so she’s in good nick right now.
Venus isn’t doing too badly either. Although the scorelines in her matches so far have been quite tight she has got better and better as those matches have gone along and I’m expecting this to be a tight game and possibly going all three sets. Venus leads their head to head 3-0 and they’ve all been one sided contests but this one is all set up to be a classic tussle which should contain more than 21.5 games.
Back B.Paire to beat T.Robredo for a 3/10 stake at 2.50 with Boylesports
Back J-W.Tsonga vs S.Stakhovsky – Under 35.5 games for a 4/10 stake at 1.80 with Boylesports
Back M.Raonic vs F.Lopez – Over 42.5 games for a 4/10 stake at 1.90 with Unibet
Back F.Fognini (+5.5 games) to beat R.Nadal for a 4/10 stake at 2.00 with Skybet
Back B.Bencic vs V.Williams – Over 21.5 games for a 4/10 stake at 1.80 with Boylesports
