US Open Day 6

Day 6 sees the bottom half of the men’s draw competing for a place in the fourth round, which means Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic both in action.

The latter has been making harder work of his recent matches than we’ve become accustomed to over the years, and it could be worth taking a chance on Gasquet on the games handicap market despite a very weak head-to-head record for the Frenchman.

Djokovic dropped sets against both Tennys Sandgren and Marton Fucsovics in the opening two rounds – despite being a 1/33 shot in both matches. He won the whole thing in Cincinnati of course, but again, dropped sets in every round en-route to the final and isn’t completely trustworthy here.

Gasquet beat both Laslo Djere (6-3 7-6 6-3) and Yuichi Sugita (6-3 6-1 6-3) comfortably, so should be fresh enough here. Get with him on the handicap looks to be the play here.

1pt Gasquet +7.5 games at 10/11 (General)

Another Frenchman who comes out well on our ratings is Lucas Pouille. He plays Joao Sousa, and the Frenchman is the more capable player all round, and most certainly on hard courts.

With an overall career 423-348 winning record, Sousa is much less confident on the hard surfaces, with a 99-98 hard court record. He also played out a long match with clay courter Pablo Carreno-Busta in the last round before the Spaniard eventually retired. Regardless, they were on court for more than three hours. Prior to this event, Sousa was on a seven-match run of being knocked out of the first round, so he’s also pretty short on recent court time.

It was similar time on court for Pouille on Thursday, but his hard court record of 81-56 is more respectable and he continues to climb the rankings bit by bit- he’s now up to 17 in the world and biding to reach the fourth round here for a third year running.

1pt Pouille to beat Sousa at 4/7 (Marathon)

Finally Kei Nishikori should be comfortable on the surface against clay man Diego Sebastian Schwartzman. The Japanese player is currently ranked 3rd in the world on hard courts – in stark contrast to his ranking as 19th overall. He’s also reached the final here, and the semi-final, making it his favourite slam event.

Schwartzman is number 13 in the world, but a look at his relative court success tells a stark story. He has reached no fewer than 41 finals in his career (including challenger events), with 39 of those achieved on clay. In fact, exclude challenger, and he’s played in seven tour semi-finals – four of which were on clay. He’s reached just one semi-final on hard courts in four seasons. Nishikori by comparison has played in 46 semi-finals, with 19 of those on hard courts. He’s played 10 hard court semi-finals in the same time frame.

With better prep for this one (under three hours on court so far this week) and a much strong game on the surface, we’re backing him to win either 3-0 or 3-1 by backing the -1.5 sets handicap.

2pts Nishikori -1.5 Sets at 5/6 (Marathon)

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