US Open GPP Breakdown: Day 6 (Saturday, September 1st)
Another pretty ho-hum day at this US Open where most of the favorites won…well actually thinking about it, the only underdog to win was Basilashvili who has served exremely well the entire tournament. We had the right favorites and studs this time, however we did not have the right coinflips and did not have Basilashvili which was required to win any money as he was the only one to open up any salary. The interesting part of this slate was that you wanted the studs who crushed like Serena and Sloane and to mitigate your losses with Khachanov and Shapovalov. Interesting to me that Shapovalov only double faulted 8 times which is much less than I would have thought in a 5 set match. Maybe he is learning to control that second serve a bit.
We go into Day 6 with 16 matches, and all having players who are playing the best. The top salary players are around 10,000 just like earlier in the tournament but are sitting around -1000 odds unlike earlier when these players were playing much easier opponents. It is much harder now to pick a lineup that has all 6 winners as shown by the previous slate, so we should shade our picks more to winners than to straight set winners as we just want to put a 6 winner lineup into a GPP and let the chips fall where they may.
Studs
David Goffin ($10,000) vs Struff, Kiki Bertens ($9,600) vs Vondrousova – These two may fly under the radar without names like Cilic, Keys, Zverev and Djokovic, but I think these are the studs you want to take. Not only do I believe both of these two have the higheset chance to three set their opponent (outside of Djokovic) but they are cheaper than the bigger names and will be had at lower ownership. Goffin gets to face arguably the worst male player left in the draw in Struff and has been extremely solid so far winning his couple of matches only dropping one set. If you like to look at elo ranking, Goffin is three hundred points ahead of Struff on hard courts which equates to a 85% win percentage and with a player in Goffin who just does not make mistakes, I would be surprised to see him drop a set here. I would lock him into all of my lineups. I think it is important to note how incredible Kiki Bertens has been lately. I have actually made an error lately in not accepting the fact that she is playing at a top 3 level – she has beaten Wozniacki, Kontaveit, Svitolina, Kvitova and Halep in Cincinnati and then dispatched Pliskova and Di Lorenzo like they were nothing in the US Open. Vondrousova has been good but she is nowhere at the level of Bertens right now and I would be surprised to see her take a set.
Favorites
Lesia Tsurenko ($8,600) vs Siniakova, Naomi Osaka ($8,400) vs Sasnovich – It is interesting what watching two matches of a player are and developing some sort of bias against them only to figure out that you are likely wrong on your bias. That is what happened with me with Osaka. I have seen her play twice and both times she has shown talent, a strong forehand and a desire to stay aggressive with shots. The problem is, in the small sample size I have watched her, she has hit numerous errors and just appeared to me as a player who had talent but really wasn’t showing it. I see now why a ton of tennis fans are enamored with her game – when her aggressive, powerful style works, she absolutely annihilates her opponent as shown by her demolishing Glushko and Siegemund in her first two matches. Maybe she doesn’t hit all of her winners in this game, but I am now willing to play her in DFS because when she is on, she does absolutely have 6-2, 6-0 upside and that is what we are looking for in this price range. With Tsurenko, we are targeting the weakest woman left in the draw in Siniakova. She had struggled coming into the US Open losing 5 straight matches and has gotten extremely lucky against Kontaveit and Tomljanovic. Those two are not even the best players on the circuit and considering fatigue and overall playing ability, I wouldn’t be surprised if Tsurenko obliterated this matchup at low ownership.
Punts
Jelena Ostapenko ($6,300) vs Sharapova, Nick Kyrgios ($5,400) vs Federer – I am extremely close to pulling the trigger on a striaght up Kyrgios bet here against Roger. There are times that Nick looks absolutely uninterested but also times when he plays to the match and can beat anyone. Nick is underpriced relative to his odds (+250) and to even think that he is underpriced at this price is crazy. All of their 4 matches so far have been tight affairs with every single one going to the final set except for when Kyrgios WD at Indian Wells in 2017. If you put Kyrgios’ A game up against Roger’s A game at this point, people might make fun of me but I think I would take Nicks’ game. The problem is, Roger hits his A game a ton of the time he steps on the court while we only get to see Kyrgios’ A game once in a blue moon. My opinion is that Kyrgios does not actually like Tennis, but he likes the money and the fame involved with it and he is much more likely to show up with his A game when we see a massive opportunity to come through. He sees that against Federer, and this is one of the biggest stages he has ever been on. Expect a wild ride from Nick, but expect at least 2 sets of entertaining tennis. On the other hand, we have a match that I actually think should be favored the other way. I have a bet on Ostapenko right now at +165 and her odds have shortened since then and she is now one of the best values in her price range relative to odds. Sharapova was not good vs Cirstea and she is not the Sharapova of old. Cirstea made a lot of mistakes and exposed a few errors in Sharapova’s game and should have actually had a 2nd set on her. Ostapenko has been pretty bad lately, but if a couple of the matches had went the other way she would actually be a favorite in this one and I have her closer to a coinflip in this matchup.