ATP Toronto Day Four Tips: Harris can continue progress by defeating Opelka

Top seed Medvedev faces Duckworth

Jannik Sinner's loss against James Duckworth was the main talking point from Wednesday's second round matches, and the reward for the Australian, Duckworth, is a clash today with top seed and tournament favourite, Daniil Medvedev. The Russian is 1.132/15 to make tomorrow's quarter-finals, which looks a few ticks short but nothing particularly untoward.

Medvedev is the only player who is an overwhelming favourite on a day with a competitive-looking card, and some matches with varying dynamics.

Rublev versus Isner likely to feature tiebreaks

A serve-orientated match is in prospect between Andrey Rublev and John Isner, with around a 45% chance of a first-set tiebreak according to my model. The Sportsbook agrees, offering 11/10 on the set 1 total games over 12.5 market.

Conversely, Diego Schwartzman versus Roberto Bautista-Agut should be a return-orientated encounter where I'm anticipating a number of breaks of serve. Schwartzman is the underdog, at 2.1011/10.

Harris has better hard court record this year than Opelka

Similar to Isner with that big-serving dynamic is Reilly Opelka, and I'm surprised to see him priced at basically the same line as opponent, Lloyd Harris. Perhaps the market has reacted slightly to Opelka's wins over Nick Kyrgios and Grigor Dimitrov this week but he hasn't done particularly well of late across various surfaces, save for a random run to the semi-finals on clay at the Rome Masters in May.

Conversely, Harris has done well on hard court this year, beating Rafa Nadal in Washington last week, and reaching the final as a qualifier in the Dubai 500 in March. The South African has eased into round three without losing a set, and dropping just 10 games across four sets so far, and I think Harris at 1.9620/21 is the value pick today.

Tsitsipas similarly priced to previous meeting with Khachanov

Finally, arguably the match of the day is Karen Khachanov versus Stefanos Tsitsipas, with the Greek the market favourite at 1.402/5 against the Olympic silver medallist. My model broadly agrees with this line, which is pretty much identical to the price when the duo met indoors in the quarter-final of Rotterdam in March. Tsitsipas won a tight three-setter that day, and I think a similar outcome - a Tsitsipas win at least - should be anticipated.

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