Miami Open Semi-final Tips: Bautista-Agut and Sinner looking well matched

Hurkacz meets Rublev after shocking Tsitsipas

There were two excellent clashes on Thursday with Hubert Hurkacz rallying from a set down to get the better of Stefanos Tsitsipas in three sets to record an excellent underdog victory. In the overnight match, Andrey Rublev edged Sebastian Korda in two tight sets, so one pre-match favourite got the job done yesterday.

Hurkacz and Rublev meet the night match tonight, scheduled at midnight UK time, and it's Rublev who is a strong market favourite to make the final - he's priced at 1.251/4 to win tonight. The Russian is also the strong tournament favourite, being available at 1.865/6 on the Exchange to lift the trophy. Opponent Hurkacz is the outsider, priced at 12.011/1.

The duo have met once before, but there aren't many parallels to draw from that match which was played on clay in Rome. Rublev was priced around 1.201/5 that day, but lost in three sets. On hard court since the tour resumed last summer, Rublev has won more service and return points than Hurkacz, although not by an absurd amount. He has, however, faced a better calibre of opposition too and this is a key factor in my rationale that his price isn't too far out of line.

Not much to split Bautista-Agut and Sinner

Prior to this clash, though, are the winners of Wednesday's quarter-finals, Roberto Bautista-Agut and Jannik Sinner. We've discussed on several occasions this week that Sinner has had variance on his side on key points and tiebreaks but I'm very slightly surprised to see him underdog at 2.305/4 against the Spanish veteran Bautista-Agut, who turns 33 in just over a week - this would make him Sinner's senior by 14 years.

Interestingly, there was a meeting between these two players several weeks ago in Dubai - also on hard court - and Sinner triumphed 6-4 3-6 7-5, and was priced a little shorter then than today. Again, variance was on his side - Bautista-Agut won seven more points in the match despite losing.

Despite this, Sinner's numbers on hard courts since the tour resumed are broadly similar to Bautista-Agut and I find little to split the duo today. There's looks to be some very slight value on the young Italian, but it's not quite enough for me to find particularly noteworthy. It is, however, interesting to note that Bautista-Agut is a fair bit shorter in the outright market at 4.216/5 compared to the 6.25/1 about Sinner, which isn't quite in line with my perceptions of the match.

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