ATP Tennis 2018 August 31

What goes up must, inevitably, come down. Two winning days in a row means I got my assed kicked and the Undertaker put me in the ground on Thursday.
What a terrible day. Horrible read on my part concerning Hurkacz and Cilic. I could not have been more wrong. Cilic beat him about as bad as you can.
Gasquet missed the spread by the hook and Djokovic lost a tiebreak just for kicks. Destroyed Sandgren in three sets and blew a set in a tiebreak just for me.
That was about as terrible a day as you can have.

Zverev looked hot though. Friday is a big day Both Stan and Coric face a stiff test.

Nadal and Khachanov have played four times and Nadal has crushed him every time. Now, KK didn’t play horribly in their match-up two weeks ago in Toronto but, he still didn’t take a set and he had to fight off seven break points . They’ve both been on fire here in New York, with neither dropping a set, although, maybe, Khachanov has done it better. Nadal has been broken three times and was saved a potential fight in the first round when David Ferrer retired. Khachanov has not been broken yet and he is, in turn, breaking at a career high rate. KK has broken serve 9 times in 28 games, good for 32%. That’s good stuff. If there is one person in the top quarter that can put some pressure on Nadal, it is Khachanov. He’ll have the stamina to keep up with Nadal and having lost four times, getting closer each time, he’ll should be ready to inch even closer. The hold/stats and the head-to-head say Nadal should run away with this again. I be content if Khachanov keeps it close and pushed Nadal. I’ll ride with Pocket Kings on the handicap and hope it helps me win a hand.
There are seven good to great matches today. This is the eighth. The ugly duckling. Two guys ranked somewhere in the 30’s to 60’s, two guys who’s best surface is clay, two guys who have a hold/break number right around 100. Pella is slightly better in that hold/break category every year so, I suspect that is why he is the small favorite. Complete pass.
I’ve written each time when he has played this week about Thiem’s horrible non-clay results and the anomaly that is the US Open for him. I don’t expect anything to change today. And it’s actually as much because of a dip in Fritz’s play as it is a slight improvement in Thiem’s play that has me continuing to back Thiem here. The past two years these two guys have had almost identical hold/break stats but, this year, Fritz has dropped below 100 while Thiem has actually improved.
Here in New York, Fritz first struggled through five sets with Mischa Zverev and then got a pass in the second round, during the worst of the heat, when Jason Kubler retired. Fritz hasn’t been able to get his first serve in 60% of the time and he allowed someone like Kubler to generate 14 break points in three sets on Wednesday. Thiem break serve 22% of the time, even on hard courts. He will crush that.
Thiem struggled at the outset in his match against Steve Johnson but, he was only broken one time in five sets (lost a first set tiebreak) and he, in turn, broke Johnson five times (and Johnson is a better server than Fritz at this point). Thiem also broke Basic five times in their first round match. They played here last year and Fritz put a scare into Thiem but, I expect this year Thiem may have an easier time of it. I’ll parlay this moneyline.
Shapo has not looked the part, in trying to replicate last summer. In the first round he was broken SEVEN times in two and half sets by an 18 year old opponent who had to retire. In the second round he was pushed to the limit by a fairly pedestrian Andreas Seppi. Kevin Anderson is a far cry from those opponents. KA has better hold/break stats than Shapo and is having one of the best years on tour by someone not named Novak, Rafa or Fed — he is now number five in the world and has one title and three other finals in 2018. I expect Anderson to win handily.
I want to be on the Delpo fade train but, there has not been any evidence that I would get a ticket on that train. It seems to have missed my stop. Delpo hasn’t dropped a set yet, he’s baked a bagel and a breadstick and he’s breaking serve about five times a match. He has also beat Verdasco five times.
Now, four of their six matches have included tiebreaks and Verdasco has stole a set in three of the five matches he’s lost. I suspect the line is just a bit high and the spread is just out of my range (with the amount of tiebreaks these guys play I would have wanted 4.5 instead of 5.5). I’ll pass.
The marquee match-up of the day? It is in my books. I have a substantial future on Coric. I’m not getting involved in this. I expect it to go four or five sets considering they’ve beaten the other recently, Meds is hot and Coric is the slightly better hard court player. I would imagine we’ll see lots of ups and downs, which means if you are a trader, you could grab whoever gets broken first or whoever drops the first set and then come back the other way, easily, once the match gets evened up. I’ll pass and just cheer on Coric; this is maybe where Meds runs out of gas.
I don’t have a read on this Isner match at all. I’m not quite sure how Lajovic is in the third round of a hard court slam but, here we are. Also, when digging into their past, I found that these two have surprisingly played five times and they’ve all been pretty close.

Look at all those tiebreaks. Four of those five matches went over the posted total and the first one just missed by the hook. It’s unclear why Isner struggles with Lajovic but, the results are staring me right in face. I have to take that over.
Stan has beaten Raonic four times. All on hard courts. Raonic is never 100%. I have an outright on Stan. Stanimal wins.
Khachanov +7.5, -125
Anderson/Thiem ml, -125
Isner/Lajovic o39.5, -120
Good luck