Kyrgios ousted in three by Hurkacz
A dominant final set saw Hubert Hurkacz get past Nick Kyrgios last night as a heavy underdog, with the Pole now recording his third consecutive deciding set victory. Five of Hurkacz's nine sets in the tournament so far have been decided by tiebreaks (two for, three against), so it's not like he's blown the opposition away - he's won a few tight matches.
Market movement hints at value on Ruud
Hurkacz's opponent on Saturday night is Casper Ruud, who eased past Felix Auger-Aliassime in an impressive display dropping just three games en route to that victory. Interestingly, early pricing had Hurkacz as the slight underdog for this match but he's now received considerable market support and now trades at 1.834/5.
To be honest, I'm not sure about those market lines. Ruud has better hard court data this year - particularly on return - so the market support for Hurkacz looks questionable.
Yesterday I mentioned the injury concern surrounding Ruud but such a dominant win over Auger-Aliassime really puts those doubts away for me - so Ruud at 2.186/5 looks a pretty nice price to me.
Carreno-Busta stands in Evans' way
There's British interest in the second semi-final with Pablo Carreno-Busta meeting Dan Evans at 1am UK time overnight. The Spaniard is a 1.4640/85 favourite to get past Evans and make the final.
Carreno-Busta's status as a solid favourite looks pretty reasonable. He has won 4% more service points than Evans on hard court this year, and similar numbers on return, so he will go into the clash with that clear advantage - very useful in rather pacy conditions.
Furthermore, there's little doubt that Carreno-Busta has impressed this tournament so far, winning all four matches in straight sets and dropping just 21 games in those eight sets. Conversely, Evans has required three sets in three of his four victories, and three underdog wins en route to this stage.
Certainly, Evans isn't without a chance, but it is difficult to dispute the market here which gives Carreno-Busta a solid chance of making his first ever Masters 1000 final.