Events / Sean Calvert / 22 August 2011 /

It's the last week before the US Open so keep stakes low and invest in players who will welcome game time, says Sean Calvert

It was a funny old week in many ways in Cincinnati, with both the men's and women's draw suffering from an inordinate number of withdrawals and retirements, but those who took my advice to stick with Andy Murray were rewarded with a 12-1 winner.

The Scot surged to the title in Cincy with the benefit of playing a weakened Novak Djokovic in the final, so it's with a healthy account balance that we head closer to Flushing Meadows.

Usually in the week prior to the US Open the top players take the week off and the also-rans play the ATP 250 event in New Haven, but that's all changed this year - well, the venue has at least.

This year sees the inaugural hosting of the Winston-Salem Open, which has taken the place of New Haven in the 2011 calendar, with New Haven reverting to a WTA only event.

The field contains a selection of players, who are struggling for form or coming back from injury, or both in the case of top seed, Andy Roddick, who took a wild card into the event as he's seriously short of match fitness at the moment.

A-Rod, whose game has been in a steady decline for a while now is a very shaky favourite for this at around [5.5] and I certainly won't be putting my hard-earned on the American here.

The former US Open champion will be outside the world's top-20 when the rankings come out on Monday and his recent record is a horror show of losses to the likes of Falvio Cipolla, Feliciano Lopez, Philipp Kohlschreiber, Pablo Cuevas and Gilles Simon.

Roddick's last win was against Victor Hanescu at Wimbledon and although he's still capable of winning these sorts of events, wear and tear has taken its toll on his body and we're surely seeing the last knockings of his career playing out at the moment.

He's been drawn to meet another veteran on his last legs in Lleyton Hewitt, who's also been handed a wild card in what looks marginally the toughest side of the draw.

As well as Hewitt, there is Gilles Muller, Dmitry Tursunov, Juan Monaco, John Isner, Marcos Baghdatis and Denis Istomin (last year's runner-up) in the top half and of these I would favour Isner.

The big man started the US Open Series very well, with a final in Atlanta preceding a semi-final in Washington, but the two Masters 1000 events were disappointing, so he'll be looking for a confidence boost this week.

Baghdatis is in desperate form at the moment and can't be considered at a skinny-looking [25.0] and new coach Miles Maclagan really has his work cut out with the newly-shaven-headed Cypriot.

Hewitt is creaking his way towards retirement and was last seen on court losing to Rajeev Ram in Atlanta, so [19.0] is a shocking price about the Aussie.

I wouldn't be surprised to see Istomin go well at around [50.0] after two Challenger wins in his home country of Uzbekistan and with points to defend from last year.

In the bottom half of the draw, Jurgen Melzer is number two seed, but there are plenty of better value options than the out of form Austrian, who trades at around [12.0].

Kevin Anderson is an obvious pick after a solid, if unspectacular, hard-court campaign in North America and the big South African could go well this week if he can overcome a resurgent James Blake, along with Ryan Harrison, Grigor Dimitrov, Robin Haase and Alexandr Dologopolov, who are his immediate opponents.

Melzer couldn't really have asked for a much easier quarter, with the out of touch trio Nikolay Davydenko, Andrey Golubev, and Sergiy Stakhovsky complementing several qualifiers, plus Igor Kunitsyn and Bernard Tomic.

Young Aussie, Tomic, has been disappointing since reaching the Wimbledon quarters and is probably best watched in a quarter that Melzer should win. The Austrian has been tweeting about playing really well in practice in Winston-Salem, but make of that what you will.

The thing to worry about in this event will be players retiring and not taking it that seriously with just a week until New York, so it's probably best to go for a slightly bigger priced player. Therefore, at around [17.0] it's worth a punt on Kevin Anderson to claim his second ATP Tour title.

Recommended bet
Back Anderson at [17]
Longshot: Istomin at [50]

'.$sign_up['title'].'

'; } } ?>

:

:

:

?

: