Having landed winners at 20/1, 25/1 and 20/1 since Wimbledon, Andy Schooler is back to bring you his best bets for the US Open men’s singles.
Tennis betting tips: US Open men’s singles
2pts e.w. Alex Zverev at 9/1 (General)
1pt Sebastian Korda to win quarter two at 7/1 (Betfred)
1pt Frances Tiafoe to win quarter four at 8/1 (Betfred)
US Open – Men’s Singles
- Flushing Meadows, New York, USA (outdoor hard)
The US Open has a habit of throwing up maiden Grand Slam winners and I think it’s worth taking a chance on it delivering another in 2024.
Starting with Andy Murray’s famous victory here in 2012, five of the last 12 champions at Flushing Meadows have been winning a Grand Slam title for the first time. That includes three of the last four.
Perhaps that can be put down to the tournament’s position in the calendar – this is the final Grand Slam of the season and it comes after eight months of hard slog, especially for those at the top of the game.
Conditions in New York are usually pretty brutal too, with 30C-plus temperatures and high humidity.
To be fair, this year’s favourites have done a pretty good job of managing their schedule, although I feel the top three in the market are all worth taking on.
With Carlos Alcaraz, Novak Djokovic and Jannik Sinner all at 7/2 or shorter, it’s clear the bookies expect one of the star trio to win.
However, none of them makes great appeal at the current odds.
Alcaraz is the favourite at 2/1 but I have lingering concerns about what he’s got left in the tank following a hard few months.
The Spaniard won Roland Garros and Wimbledon back-to-back before reaching the final of the Olympics, where he had to settle for the silver medal.
That’s a run which must have been physically and mentally draining but such is the tour that he’s now asked to go again, playing best-of-five tennis just three weeks after his near-miss in Paris.
In the interim period, Alcaraz has lost his only match – beaten by Gael Monfils in Cincinnati.
This seems a good time to talk about the courts.
It played very quick in Cincinnati – not ideal for Alcaraz – with a court-pace rating of 42 recorded. That puts it in the International Tennis Federation’s medium-fast category.
Interestingly, that’s exactly what US Open organisers are aiming for on their Laykold surface.
Here’s what tournament director Stacey Allaster said at last week’s press conference: “We aim for the court pace rating to be medium fast. Medium fast, per the ITF, is anywhere from 41 to 44.
“All 17 courts have been resurfaced. The average CPR right now is 42. It’s where we like it to be at the start of the tournament.
“We take feedback from players. We take feedback from player development. We know that that speed of court gives us that right balance with the style of play. It’s been successful.”
Despite that, some players have suggested the courts are playing slower than in Ohio (they use the same balls at both events), although the fact they’ve been resurfaced ahead of the tournament suggests they will speed up the more they are played on.
Any way, back to Alcaraz and I feel the 2022 champion is short enough at the price, especially when you see the likes of Jack Draper, who beat him at Queen’s Club, Seb Korda and Hubi Hurkacz in his quarter.
I’m also happy to swerve Sinner.
The world number one won that event in Cincinnati but he struggled through parts of it, clearly troubled by his long-standing hip injury.
It’s best-of-five sets here and longer matches will likely only exacerbate the problem, while we’ve already seen his body let him down at both Roland Garros and Wimbledon this season.
Then there’s the extra attention he’s going to receive – particularly from the media – over his failed drug tests earlier this season.
As we discovered this week, Sinner escaped a ban as he successfully argued there was ‘no fault or negligence’ on his behalf – it was accepted the positive test was a result of him receiving massages from someone who had used a cream to treat a cut.
It’s certainly going to be an unwanted distraction and, again, this is a player whose price offers little value.
If I had to pick someone from the current ‘big three’, I’d probably side with Djokovic.
He sparkled in Paris, winning Olympic gold without losing a set as he claimed the only major prize in the sport that was missing from his remarkable collection.
That followed a run to the Wimbledon final so, having failed to win a title in the first half of the year, it’s clear he’s playing his best tennis of the season.
But after that massive high – and the celebrations back in Belgrade in front of thousands of fans – there could well be a comedown.
Are motivation levels the same as they were in Paris? That has to be in doubt, even with the carrot of winning an all-time record 25th major dangling. And it’s easy to remember how Djokovic fell away a bit following the completion of his career Grand Slam at the 2016 French Open.
He went more than two years without a Grand Slam title on that occasion, albeit an elbow injury played a part in that.
Eight years on and it’s the knee which is his main worry – surgery to repair a torn meniscus took place in June, making his recent results all the more remarkable.
But there cannot be 100% trust in the joint. Support strapping remains prominent and it should be remembered that the Serb spoke about the “intense pain” he felt during his quarter-final match the Olympics, after which he suggested he might have to pull out.
To reiterate, he’s now got to deal with best-of-five tennis so, again, I just feel there are too many potential problems to be backing him at 23/10.
For me, the alternative is to side with ALEX ZVEREV.
He’s the Slam-less man I was alluding to back at the start of this piece and one who is both playing well and has a decent record at this tournament.
The German has won a tour-leading 52 matches this season and while the fact he’s played a total of 68 does throw up that question of fatigue, Zverev is one of the fittest ATP players and is rarely seen struggling physically.
He was a semi-finalist at January’s Australian Open where he beat Alcaraz before losing to Daniil Medvedev from two sets up.
That’s a nod to a concern. Zverev famously lost the 2020 final here from the same position, coming within two points of beating Dominic Thiem but ultimately failing to do so in what was a dramatic, nerve-filled encounter.
He was back in another final at this year’s Roland Garros, this time losing from two sets to one up against Alcaraz, but he keeps knocking on the door at all the big events and most recently was a tie-break away from taking down Sinner in the Cincinnati semis.
Zverev’s big serve worked well that day and will be a massive weapon if it plays fast but, even if it doesn’t, he has the power to hit through the court and is a man for all conditions.
Since that final loss to Thiem, his two subsequent visits to Flushing Meadows have resulted in semi-final and quarter-final appearances, Djokovic and Alcaraz the men to beat him.
I accept some people will discard him – and maybe he is destined to be a nearly man – but the history of this tournament suggests that if he is going to break his duck, it is likely to happen here in New York.
At 9/1, Zverev makes appeal and can also be backed each-way at that price.
As fourth seed, he avoids those above him in the market until at least the semis.
The player I’m most concerned about in his section is Lorenzo Musetti – he’s won an awful lot of matches of late across a variety of surfaces and I do feel his improvement could now extend to the hardcourts.
One those wins was against Zverev at the Olympics but he’s got a tricky draw to overcome before any last-16 rematch.
Had he landed in another part of the draw, I may have fancied Musetti but instead I’m happy to stick with my Zverev plan.
Of course, I’ve picked holes in the market principals so perhaps it’s worth taking them in in their quarters.
As already hinted, I feel Alcaraz could be vulnerable in Q2, especially with Draper a likely third-round foe.
The Briton won their Queen’s contest and while Alcaraz leads 2-1 overall, it’s worth noting that one win came via retirement and the other was 7-5 in the final set in Basel in 2022.
In short, he’s a player with weapons who causes the world number three problems.
Draper played well in Cincinnati where he beat Felix Auger-Aliassime and Stefanos Tsitsipas before losing to Holger Rune in the quarter-finals.
As long-term readers will know, I’ve long liked Draper’s game but physically he’s not always there which puts me off rather, Still, I do think Unibet (and the other Kambi sites) are taking a bit of a risk offering him at 12/1 to reach the quarter-finals.
Slight preference is for SEBASTIAN KORDA, who looks worth a dabble at 7/1.
He’s another to have won a lot in recent months.
His grasscourt season saw a final appearance in Den Bosch and a semi-final at Queen’s. I fancied his chances at Wimbledon but he ran into the huge-serving Giovanni Mpetschi Perricard, who blasted down 52 aces as Korda went 0-for-11 on break points.
Still, he’s put that disappointment behind him and an early arrival on the hardcourts has seen him continue to rack up wins.
He was the champion in Washington where he beat another in-form American, FRANCES TIAFOE, and also reached the semis in Montreal where Zverev and Taylor Fritz were among his victims.
After that tough run, an early defeat in Cincinnati can be excused.
Korda is 4-1 down to Alcaraz, who he could meet in the last 16, but that win on clay will give him some confidence, while the pair have yet to face each other on an outdoor hardcourt.
Finally, it might be worth backing the aforementioned Tiafoe to win the fourth quarter, that of Djokovic, at 8/1.
He made the most of a situation which saw him fail to qualify for the USA Olympic team, going QF-SF-RU across the hardcourt events in Atlanta, Washington and Cincinnati.
Rublev, Hurkacz, Rune and Musetti have all been beaten during that period and now he moves onto a venue that has brought the best out of him in the past.
Tiafoe loves interacting with the home crowd and he’s fed off them to reach the semi-finals and quarter-finals in his last two visits.
Given his form, he’s in a good position to pounce if Djokovic is below par and falls early. And if they do meet in round four, Tiafoe will know he pushed the Serb hard in their only previous outdoor hardcourt meeting, losing in four sets at the 2021 Australian Open, a match which featured two tie-breaks.
Posted at 1545 BST on 23/08/24
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