US Open - Mens Day 1 Picks

We’re supporting a Brit in our first Round One pick, where we fancy Cameron Norrie to demolish Dimitry Tursunov 3-0. Regular readers may recall a similar bet at Wimbledon, where we backed Fabio Fognini to win 3-0 against Tursunov.

The Russian is a spent force, and has clearly made the decision to make the best of his protected status, but playing his last free slots out in the Grand Slams to maximise his earnings. The last two seasons have seen him produce a 3-14 record against Top 300 players, and he’s struggled in all of the few standard tournaments he’s played. Cameron Norrie is an emerging talent, and should go higher than his current world 226 ranking, so should be taken seriously. If he gets going here in the first set, we’d be surprised with anything other than a whitewash. Back the 5/4 is the advice.

Cameron Norrie to beat Tursunov 3-0 at 5/4

Our second pick is Denis Shapovalov as he meets Daniil Medvedev. Only 16 places separate them in the world rankings, but it is the Canadian who is rising through the rankings most quickly, and Shapovalov also comes into this event in great form. Still just 18, we won a challenger immediately after Wimbledon, and then reached a semi-final before taking a big step up to reach the semi-finals in Montreal – losing in a reasonably close encounter to eventual champion Alexander Zverev. He’s already used to these courts having come through qualifying.

Medvedev is on a four match losing streak now, having crashed out of Montreal and Cincinnati, and then Winston-Selem, so his preparation has been significantly hampered, and we fancy the Canadian to continue his march up the rankings. The early even money has all gone, but Bet365’s 4/5 is still perfectly acceptable.

2.5pts Shapovalov to beat Medvedev at 4/5

Yen-Hsun Lu is a lively outsider when he meets Karen Khachanov – he loves hard courts and should be high on confidence after winning back to back challenger events following an unsuccessful Wimbledon. It was a drop in class, but was perhaps what he needed to work on his game most effectively.

Khachanov has been fairly inconsistent and can still be prone to the odd drop in concentration, so there has to be a chance of the form book being upset in this one. Lu also won the only meeting between the pair – earlier this season.

Yen-Hsun Lu to beat Khachanov at 2/1

Finally Borna Coric should be backed to come out on top of Jiri Vesely in their first round clash, and we’re taking him on the handicap. The younger man has a game much more suited to playing on hard courts, and he also holds a 3-1 head to head advantage over Vesely – all within the past two years.

A recent win over John Isner stood out for Coric and his 93-50 career hard court record compared favourably to 84-54 from Vesely who has always preferred to get onto clay during his career. The markets are moving slightly against Coric, but we’ll take him on the -2.5 games handicap at even money in this one.

Coric to win (-2.5 games) at Even Money.

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