ATP Washington Tips: Kyrgios very short in price against Opelka

Round three of the 2022 Citi Open in Washington DC is in-play on Thursday and in the last eight editions this has proven an excellent round for backing underdogs in.

An average of 48% of them have won, which compares very favourably to the overall tournament average of 32%.

It's set to be another hot and humid day on Thursday, with 35C in the shade temperatures expected, with the possibility of the odd shower, and a 'real-feel' of 40C, so it'll be a very tough day for the players.

Nick Kyrgios and Reilly Opelka will be greeted by 'real feel' 40C heat when they step out onto the court at around 4pm local time (9pm UK) and the Aussie looks very short in the betting at 1.412/5 to win.

Yes, Kyrgios has been playing very well so far in DC and he's on the back of that great run at Wimbledon, but as we know, it can all unravel pretty quickly (and usually spectacularly) with Kyrgios.

He's yet to beat Opelka in two previous attempts (on clay in Houston only four months ago and on hard in Toronto last summer) and on those occasions Kyrgios was priced up 1.584/7 and 1.814/5, so this price today looks short.

Kyrgios served very well against Tommy Paul on Wednesday and was clinical on break chances (took three of four), but he only won 36% of his second serve points and that won't be good enough against Opelka.

Opelka fired down 28 aces to beat Denis Kudla from a set down on Wednesday and in his two matches against Kyrgios it's Opelka that's posted much the better numbers.

Kyrgios has been nowhere near the Opelka serve, with Opelka winning a huge 88% of his first serve points and 63% on second serve (Kyrgios 73% and 50%) and Kyrgios has created just three break point chances in 27 Opelka service games - and he took two of those three.

So, even though Opelka has only saved 33% of the break chances against him he's still held serve 93% of the time against Kyrgios and broken the Kyrgios serve 15% of the time, which is a lot for Opelka.

Opelka has created 0.56 break chances per game, which is very big for a player not known for his return game and in general Kyrgios doesn't have a great record against fellow big servers.

He's 17-15 win/loss overall against the ones on my list and he's lost four of the last six (won one of the two he did win in a final set tie break) so I'm happy to take Opelka for a point at this price.

Rublev unproven against net-rushing style of Cressy

Andrey Rublev has also struggled lately against big servers, losing four of his last five against the ones in my list and I'm intrigued to see how he gets on against the net-rushing Maxime Cressy.

The later scheduling of this match (7pm local) may mean that it's a bit slower and perhaps not ideal for Cressy, but it wouldn't surprise me if his style of play proved awkward for Rublev.

Extreme heat likely to cause problems

The heat of the day could present a problem for many out there today and it does put me off backing the kind of players that have to do a fair bit of running to win their matches, such as Yoshihito Nishioka, Dan Evans, and Mikael Ymer.

I'm also harbouring some doubts about Holger Rune and Botic van de Zandschulp in this sort of heat and it may be the case today that some of the matches are won on fitness rather than tennis ability.

So, the conditions make this a tricky day for bettors and the value seems to me to lie with Opelka today.