Miami Masters Day Six Tips: Markets looking accurate as third round continues

Dan Weston
27 March 2023
3:00 min read

Daniil Medvedev has the night off after getting a walkover...

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Third round action at the Miami Masters continues on Monday, with seven remaining fourth round spots up for grabs tonight. Dan Weston returns with his thoughts...

Medvedev through without stepping on to court
McDonald likely to be too strong for Halys
Improving Lehecka to compete with Khachanov

Ruud out as other favourites dominate

With the exception of Casper Ruud, who was defeated in three sets by Botic Van de Zandschulp, Sunday's matches went in favour of the pre-match favourites in fairly routine fashion, with none of the other seven winners dropping a set in their victories.

Joining the eight winners in round four is Daniil Medvedev, who has already been awarded a walkover by today's scheduled opponent Alex Molcan, and he now faces the winner of the Quinton Halys versus Mackenzie McDonald clash.

Alcaraz continues as market leader

Following these matches, Carlos Alcaraz is now into the 2.3411/8 favourite on the outright market, while Medvedev has shortened to 3.7511/4, implying that there's not far off a 70% chance that one of these two will be lifting the trophy next Sunday.

Of course, there's plenty of tennis to be played before then, and that includes today's seven remaining third round matches as the round concludes tonight. As has been the case throughout the event so far, there's plenty of strong favourites, and these include Hubert Hurkacz, Felix Auger-Aliassime and Stefanos Tsitsipas.

McDonald favourite to continue strong run

Mackenzie McDonald picked up an excellent winner for us on Saturday with an underdog win over Matteo Berrettini, and he looks well-placed for another victory tonight to continue his progress. The American is 1.558/15 to get past the threat of Quentin Halys, who stunned Alex De Minaur in the previous round to win as around a 4.003/1 underdog.

The Frenchman, Halys, had a pretty mediocre start to his year, going 7-10 when he lost to Jan-Lennard Struff at Indian Wells, and with all his wins coming as a pre-match favourite or very close to even money. However, he progressed to the semi-finals of the Phoenix Challenger last week, with several solid victories, although McDonald looks a fair step up from the opposition in Arizona.

McDonald's edge should come from his better return game, but it's tough to argue with the market pricing - if he was a little bigger-priced, say getting up to around 1.705/7, then that would look some value.

Lehecka very capable of giving Khachanov a tough test

Moving on, I've been impressed with Jiri Lehecka as a young player making progress in recent months, and the 21-year-old Czech already has the respect of the market, who have him trading at 2.26/5] to defeat top-20 regular Karen Khachanov.

It's fair to say that Khachanov has played pretty sparingly since he reached the semi-finals of the Australian Open, and that arguably created some rustiness as he dropped a set as a heavy pre-match favourite against the Argentine clay courter, Tomas Etcheverry, in his opener.

Lehecka, however, has won all four sets so far to get to this stage, although has lost four of his last five - albeit three being against Rublev, Zverev and Murray.

Looking at the data, Khachanov's better return game should make him a justified favourite to progress here, and anything much closer to even money on him would look like a solid play.

Barrere slight favourite over Eubanks

Finally, Gregoire Barrere looks about right as a slight favourite against Christopher Eubanks. Given the serve-oriented nature of Eubanks' play, he is likely to need to serve extremely well and convert one or two opportunities on key points in order to have anything more than a puncher's chance of making round four.

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