US Open Betting: Marathon men Murray and Wawrinka reward their backers

US Open Betting / Jamie "The Pacman" Pacheco / 31 August 2008 / Leave a Comment

It was a case of " once bitten, twice shy" for the Andy Murray layers as the number six seed touched just 5.3 on Betfair whilst threatening to go out in straight sets to the unseeded Jurgen Melzer at the US Open.

Those willing to oppose Murray (who at the time he was matched at [5.3] was two sets down and just two points away from going out in the third set tie-breaker), will surely have recalled that exactly two months to the day at Wimbledon the fiery Scot was matched at odds of [75.0] on Betfair when in a seemingly precarious position against Richard Gasquet, before going on to win in five.

The fact that Murray came back to win on that occasion in addition to the notorious mental vulnerability of Melzer explain why the left-handed Austrian only ever touched a low of 1.25 on the match odds market. A 3-2 Murray win was matched at a high of [10.0] on the set betting market.

Murray's win has seen him installed as the fourth favourite to win at Flushing Meadows and he currently trades at odds of [18.5] on Betfair. His next opponent is the man who partnered Roger Federer to Olympic gold in the doubles - Stanislas Wawrinka - who also went the distance against Italy's Flavio Cipolla before booking his place in the next round. Wawrinka was matched at a high of [2.5] when two sets down against the Italian, ranked just 142 in the world.

Murray goes into the Wawrinka match as the [1.47] favourite and should he come through that he will play the winner of Del Potro v Nishikoria, after the latter came through yet another five-set thriller against number four seed David Ferrer. Ferrrer came from two sets down to tie the match at 2-2 and looked the stronger and fitter of the two at the start of the decider, at which point he was matched at a low of [1.12] as his Japanese opponent faced a break point early on.

But it was the Florida-based teenager that came through in the end with the prize being a showdown with the in-form man of the US hard court season so far, Del Potro of Argentina, who goes into the match as the [1.32] jolly.