Men's US Open Day 1 Tips: Shelton short-priced after poor run of form

• Several seeds facing former top 10 players

• Djokovic among leading names playing on opening day

• Cachin can keep it close against Shelton

Bublik favourite to defeat former winner Thiem

Matches start in New York at 16:00 UK time, and there's a cracking match-up to start proceedings, with Alexander Bublik facing Dominic Thiem. A seed against a former top-five player is always a fascinating prospect in round one of a Slam, and we've got it here with Bublik a 1.68/13 favourite against the Austrian, who has really struggled to make much progress inside the top 100 after long-term injury.

Thiem won this event in 2020, defeating Alexander Zverev in a dramatic final set tie-break, but is a pale shadow of his former self this year, yet to win a match on outdoor hard court and with poor data from the matches which he has lost.

Bublik, too, hasn't impressed on the surface this year either but data over the last year or so on hard court suggests that he's the deserved favourite at current prices, particularly given that Thiem hasn't played on the surface this month in any of the warm-up events.

Berrettini favourite against seeded Humbert

Another superb-looking meeting is Ugo Humbert against Matteo Berrettini, with Berrettini the 1.674/6 favourite to make round two.

Again, this is a similar dynamic with a seed (Humbert) against an unseeded player who was ranked as high as six in the world last year, and I've seen a high enough level from Berrettini at Wimbledon - we can forgive his losses in the hard court Masters events against strong opposition - to consider him priced accurately here.

Overs a consideration between Tsitsipas and Raonic

On an opening day of rare quality, we also see Stefanos Tsitsipas at 1.341/3 against former world number three Milos Raonic, who didn't perform badly at all in Toronto several weeks ago, beating Frances Tiafoe in a strong-serving exhibition. Since Raonic returned to tour in June after almost two years out, he's won over 70% of service points, suggesting his serve is still firing.

Against Tsitsipas, another serve-oriented player, there's scope to consider whether this match could be extremely variance-heavy. Tiebreaks look likely, and over 43 games (a 3-1 set scoreline would likely achieve this) is an interesting prospect at around even money.

Djokovic among big names in action

Among other quality matches on day one is Felix Auger-Aliassime against Mackenzie McDonald, with the out-of-form Canadian a marginal favourite at 1.865/6 on reputation and previous quality, while other big names on court today include tournament favourite Novak Djokovic, Taylor Fritz, Holger Rune and Casper Ruud.

I'm keen to fade the latter duo in particular during this event but not today against opposition unlikely to significantly test them. We can wait for spots in later rounds.

Shelton a vulnerable heavy favourite

Finally, an interesting match-up is the home player Ben Shelton, who is 1.222/9 to win, against the Argentinian clay-courter Pedro Cachin. Cachin has little in the way of hard court pedigree, but Shelton is in a woeful run of form and a match with two players with mediocre return games on the surface looks like it could be more competitive than the odds suggest.

Cachin getting a 5.5 game handicap advantage at 2.111/10 could be interesting against an out of form player unlikely to win sets by big margins.