Rogers Cup Day 3 Tips: Giron a handicap option against Rune

• Various seeds start their tournaments

• Giron the pick on game handicap

• Raonic and Murray both favourites

Alcaraz and Medvedev expected to ease into round three

Following Casper Ruud's victory yesterday to kick off the second round stage in Toronto, the other 15 clashes in the round take place today, signalling the start of the tournament for the remaining seeded players.

These include tournament favourite Carlos Alcaraz, who faces the American big-server Ben Shelton, while second seed Daniil Medvedev meets the high potential Italian clay-courter, Matteo Arnaldi. Both Alcaraz and Medvedev are priced around the 1.101/10 to 1.152/13 mark to progress to round three.

Sinner could struggle against countryman Berrettini

Other seeds aren't quite as short priced, and a few look slightly vulnerable. Jannik Sinner is 1.574/7 against countryman Matteo Berrettini, who of course would be a top 10 player if it wasn't for injury. Berrettini made a statement in his comeback at Wimbledon, reaching the quarter-finals, and with Sinner a little inconsistent of late, an underdog victory for Berrettini in this all-Italian clash is certainly possible.

Giron to give Rune a battle

I also wonder whether Holger Rune could be a vulnerable short-priced favourite at 1.261/4 in the night match against Marcos Giron. Rune hasn't played since Wimbledon, and has had an unimpressive hard court year so far, failing to reach the quarter-finals in any of the March Masters events or the Australian Open.

In fact, the Dane has pretty mediocre hard court data in general for a top ten player, and numbers which aren't much better than Giron, who is ranked outside the top 50. The American qualified to be here without much difficulty, and picked up a decent underdog win against Emil Ruusuvuori in round one.

Relatively quick conditions should be something of a leveller between the duo, and +4.5 games on the game handicap in favour of Giron is a possible option at prices likely to settle around the 1.855/6 mark on the Exchange.

Raonic among veterans in action

In other matches, it will be fascinating to see if Gael Monfils can test Stefanos Tsitsipas, with the Greek man a solid 1.3030/100 favourite to defeat the veteran, while Andy Murray is similarly priced to defeat the qualifier, Max Purcell. Murray carries the only remaining British hope after defeats yesterday for Cam Norrie and Dan Evans, with Purcell stemming a run of six main tour defeats in a row with his surprise triumph over Felix Auger-Aliassime yesterday.

With injury-prone veterans something of a recurring theme in this discussion, Milos Raonic versus Taro Daniel also intrigues. Raonic, who benefited from a wild card to play here, now has played five matches in the last couple of months and we are starting to establish numbers on the current version of the Canadian.

Raonic's win over Frances Tiafoe in round one was a real statement of his comeback, and his serve numbers still look strong. Perhaps a couple of percentage points below his real peak, but it should be enough to see off the threat of Daniel here, and the 1.594/7 market price doesn't look out of line.