ATP Atlanta Tips: Isner may have to go the distance to beat Shelton

We've reached the quarter final stage of this week's tournaments and this round has been a good one for underdog backers in Umag and Kitzbuhel over the years.

In the last nine editions of the Generali Open 44% of them have won on average, while in Umag's last eight editions 42% of them have won.

But it's actually in Atlanta, where only 28% of the betting underdogs have won in the last eight editions that I'm inclined to have a bet or two and the ones that interest me are James Duckworth, Ben Shelton and possibly Andres Martin.

Taking on Alex De Minaur in some way is what I wanted to do at the start of the week, mainly because I think he'll find it tough to shake off the painful defeat to Cristian Garin at Wimbledon so quickly.

We've seen on many occasions in the past that some players do let bad losses in majors affect them afterwards, such as Stefanos Tsitsipas, who's gone on poor runs of form after losing matches he probably feels he should have won in slams.

De Minaur admitted after the Garin match that it would take a long time for him to get over that defeat and I wonder how motivated he'll be (or how match-ready he'll be) after three weeks off the tour?

Duckworth might well be the one who wants it more

Duckworth, on the other hand, has been making up for all the time he's lost this season due to injury and he's played eight matches to De Minaur's zero since July 4.

On the face of it you wouldn't have thought that Duckworth would have the sort of powerful game to cause major problems for De Minaur, but he might well be the one who wants it more.

It has the feel of a match that De Minaur will probably win in the end, but he may well have to go to a third set to do so and I'll take half a point on ADM winning it 2-1 at 4.131/10.

College players not be underestimated in Atlanta

Young US players Ben Shelton and Andres Martin will also be highly motivated to go well and each has the ability to at least be competitive against John Isner and Adrian Mannarino respectively.

Older tennis watchers will remember Shelton's dad and coach, Bryan Shelton, who beat Michael Stich at Wimbledon 1994 and made it to a career-high of 55 in the world, and now his son is widely tipped to have a better career.

Shelton has plenty of weapons, with a decent lefty serve and the ability to get to the net and finish points off and while still at college (he's the NCAA champion) he's already won 13 of his 17 senior level matches this year (Challengers and round one here in Atlanta).

He's from Atlanta, where his dad was the coach at Georgia Tech (where Martin goes to college and is their number one player) so he's very familiar with the conditions and he's already been told that there's a US Open wildcard waiting for him this year if he turns pro.

Where there is value, based on Isner's past performance in Atlanta, is to back the match to go to three sets, which Shelton is very much capable of doing

Clearly, facing Isner (who also went to college in Georgia) is a bigger challenge than anything that Shelton has faced so far in his short career, but Isner's record in Atlanta shows that he's quite likely to play a set one tie break here.

Isner has done that 16 times in his 41 opening sets in Atlanta (39%), including five of his last six, but 39% equates to odds of around 2.568/5 and we're only being offered odds of around 2.35/4, so no value there.

Where there is value, based on Isner's past performance in Atlanta, is to back the match to go to three sets, which Shelton is very much capable of doing.

Isner has played 21 three-set matches and 20 two-set matches in his main level career in Atlanta, so on that basis, three sets should be a shade of odds-on, but we're getting 2.568/5, so I'm happy to take that bet.

Indeed, if we just take Isner's opening match in Atlanta, he's gone to three sets seven times out of 11 (64% of the time), so for me against an opponent for whom this is the biggest match of his life so far, I'm happy to back Isner to have to go the distance again.

Andres Martin is a little trickier to gauge, given his lack of experience so far (he's only played 10 matches at ITF level, winning eight of them) and his win over Thanasi Kokkinakis in round one was in part due to a lack of much of an effort from the Aussie.

I'd expect Adrian Mannarino to put up a sterner fight as a lucky loser this week in Atlanta and it will probably be the case that Mannarino will have too much experience and variety for the 21-year-old engineering major.

So, I'll take one point on there being three sets in the Isner/Shelton match and half a point on De Minaur beating Duckworth 2-1.