Daily tennis tips: US Open best bets, betting analysis and accumulators Tuesday August 29
Tennis betting tips: US Open, Tuesday August 29
1.5pts Guido Pella to beat Lloyd Harris at 2/1 (bet365)
1pt Michael Mmoh to beat Karen Khachanov at 13/10 (William Hill, Unibet)
1.5pts over 1.5 tie-breaks in Facundo Diaz Acosta v John Isner at 7/4 (Sky Bet)
1.5pts Emil Ruusuvuori (+5.5) to beat Andrey Rublev on the game handicap at 5/6 (BoyleSports)
Lloyd Harris v Guido Pella
Pella looks well worth a bet in this one to me.
Harris is overly reliant on his serve with his return numbers disappointing.
In the current hardcourt swing, he failed to create a break point against Ugo Humbert in Atlanta, lost to Sho Shimabukuro and Liam Broady in Washington and Cary respectively, and, in Cincinnati, again failed to break serve against Max Purcell.
The bad news for him here is not that Pella’s serve is unbreakable; far from it. It’s more that the Argentine has a good record against the strong servers.
A look at some of his head-to-head records is ample evidence of that.
He leads Milos Raonic 1-0, is 1-1 with John Isner and is up 3-1 on Marin Cilic.
Harris simply isn’t in the sort of form to warrant a price of 9/20 and Pella looks well worth chancing at 2/1.
Karen Khachanov v Michael Mmoh
Bar two doubles matches at the Cincinnati Masters, Khachanov hasn’t played since the French Open due to a stress fracture of his back. At one stage he was struggling to walk and didn’t pick up a racquet for seven weeks.
He must also deal with the pressure of defending a huge number of points following his run to the semi-finals in New York 12 months ago.
In short, Khachanov looks worth opposing here.
American Mmoh, who will have the Flushing Meadows crowd right behind him, has been in decent form of late, most notably taking down Hubert Hurkacz in Washington.
He also beat Marcos Giron in Winston-Salem last week before losing in three sets to Borna Coric.
That’s good enough for me to think he’s capable taking down the rusty Russian.
Facundo Diaz Acosta v John Isner
Long-term readers will know how I’ve loved a tie-break bet involving Isner down the years and with the American playing his final tournament before retirement, I simply can’t resist one last roll of that particular dice.
The bet I’m liking is over 1.5 tie-breaks in the match – it is one which has landed in 10 of Isner’s last 16 Grand Slam matches on a hardcourt.
As for the 2023 season, he’s played only 14 hardcourt matches and has seen 2+ tie-breaks in seven of them, this despite the fact that 13 of them have been in the best-of-three-sets format. Here, we’ve got the chance of five sets in which to get two breakers.
The reason Isner plays so many tie-breaks remains a familiar one.
He’s held in 93% of his service games in 2023 on a hardcourt but his return figures are woeful – just 4.2% of games have been won when receiving.
Admittedly, Diaz Acosta is a player much more at home on clay but Isner’s numbers suggest he may not have to work too hard to hold serve regularly and get into a tie-break or two.
Diaz Acosta played at least one in three of his five matches on the hardcourts at the start of the year and last week in Winston-Salem beat Quentin Halys to show he’s no mug.
Emil Ruusuvuori v Andrey Rublev
Rublev arrives here on the back of defeats in his two hardcourt matches so far this summer.
Significantly, one of those was against Ruusuvuori in Cincinnati where conditions are also pretty quick and bouncy.
Rublev also struggled in Indian Wells and Miami back in the spring so he’s clearly struggled on the North American hardcourts of late.
Ruusuvuori tends to play his best tennis on courts with a bit of pace and he’ll get that chance here.
5/2 about a repeat victory for the Finn looks a little on the large side but perhaps the best way to back him here is in the handicap market.
Ruusuvuori gets a 5.5-game start which I certainly think he’s capable of covering.
Posted at 0925 BST on 29/08/23
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