Thanasi Kokkinakis v Nuno Borges
I can’t help but feel there’s been an overreaction to Kokkinakis’ victory over 11th seed Stefanos Tsitsipas in round one.
Yes, that was an impressive result but Tsitsipas hasn’t been playing particularly well of late and Kokkinakis has shown in the past that he’s capable of the odd upset.
The problem in the Slams has always been backing it up.
A look through his record shows he’s managed to win back-to-back matches at this level just three times and none of those have come on a hardcourt.
The Australian’s body was been notoriously brittle over the years and I doubt playing playing four hours against Tsitsipas in pretty tough conditions will help his chances here.
Borges is no mug and, as highlighted in this column on Tuesday, has made considerable improvement on hardcourts in 2024.
He helped us claim a winner that day and I think he’s a big price as the outsider here.
The Portuguese is the world number 34 – that’s 52 places higher than Kokkinakis – and he’s also won the pair’s only previous meeting.
Notably, that came on a hardcourt only a few months ago with Borges winning 7-6 6-1 and holding serve throughout.
If he gets his nose in front early here, I can see him winning this in similar, comfortable fashion.
I’ll therefore back Borges to win this at odds-against and also put a small bet on the straight-sets success at 6/1.
Jordan Thompson v Hubert Hurkacz
I’m pretty sure Hurkacz isn’t 100% fit, hardly surprising given the knee injury he suffered at Wimbledon.
To be fair, he’s done pretty well in some of the lead-in events but he was struggling on some of the low balls when I saw him in Montreal.
He relied heavily upon his big serve in the first round, hitting 27 aces and winning two tie-breaks against Timofey Skatov.
Thompson is a step up though and, significantly, has a good record against big servers – he’s beaten Reilly Opelka and Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard in recent weeks, while Alex Zverev and Taylor Fritz are also mong his victims this season.
The Aussie is 22-11 on hardcourts in 2024 and has enjoyed success on both slow and fast surfaces, winning in Los Cabos and making the final in Atlanta.
It hasn’t played as fast at Flushing Meadows as the organisers predicted in the run-up to the tournament and so that could potentially work against Hurkacz, whose return game is poor for a top-10 player – he’s won just 16% of return games on a hardcourt this season.
Essentially, I’m keen to side with Thompson in some way here.
I had originally thought about going over on total games but with the courts not as quick as originally anticipated and the line set a tad higher than I’d hoped (39.5), I’m just going to go for the upset at 9/5.
Posted at 2250 BST on 28/08/24
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