US Open Men's Singles Day Five Tips: Goffin a false underdog for Krajinovic clash

Ruusuvuori joins Raonic and Murray in exiting on day four

A foot injury consigned our pick, Emil Ruusuvuori, to defeat against Casper Ruud, after an absurd match where the Finn failed to convert any of seven break points at 4-4* in the opening set before getting immediately broken to lose the opener. Overall, Ruusuvuori lost despite having more chances, and this is something that does happen in a sport where fine margins often dictate the eventual outcome.

In other matches, Milos Raonic was dumped out by countryman Vasek Pospisil, who saved all five break point chances on his serve. Grigor Dimitrov joined him in being ousted, with Marton Fucsovics defeating the Bulgarian, while Andy Murray's exertions in his round one win over Yoshihito Nishioka probably didn't do him any favours in a straight-set loss to Felix Auger-Aliassime.

Djokovic overwhelming favourite to beat Struff

Winners from last night have a day off today, with Wednesday's victors taking to the court in eight third round matches, which start at 1600 UK time. There are three sub 1.201/5 favourites, with all looking a little short. Novak Djokovic, at 1.041/25, is probably the most realistically priced, with the world number one taking on Jan-Lennard Struff, but there are certainly arguments against the price of the other two heavy favourites, Alexander Zverev and Stefanos Tsitsipas.

Zverev and Tsitsipas look over-rated by the market

The market seems to have forgotten that Zverev hasn't been that impressive generally in the last year of so, and also has dropped a set each time in the opening two rounds. He's 1.222/9 against the capable but inconsistent Frenchman, Adrian Mannarino, who can certainly test Zverev if he has a good day.

As for Tsitsipas, he faces Borna Coric, who I'd be keener on if he didn't play a five-set epic lasting over four hours on Wednesday. Tsitsipas is 1.141/7 which does, in normal circumstances, look very short. If Coric's fitness is decent, he is capable of keeping this close at the very least.

Goffin a false underdog against Krajinovic

However, for today's pick I want to look at the Filip Krajinovic versus David Goffin match, with Goffin the 2.568/5 underdog. When they met at Indian Wells and Montpellier last year, the prices were reversed, so the market has considerable faith currently in the Serb, Krajinovic.

To some extent, that's understandable. Krajinovic has won five from six since the tour resumed, including thrashing Dominic Thiem at the Western & Southern Open. In these six matches, he's running at almost 114% combined service/return points won, which looks impressive. And, it is impressive, but we must also consider that apart from Thiem, the highest ranked opponent he faced was number 30 Milos Raonic, and that was the match he lost. All his other wins were against opposition ranked outside the top 80.

In New York at the start of last week, Krajinovic was priced around 1.402/5 against Challenger Tour regular Salvatore Caruso, and around 1.654/6 against Marton Fucsovics, and he's not dissimilarly priced against a much higher level opponent in Goffin today.

Even with such decent performances post-lockdown, I can't have Krajinovic at these prices. It's a massive over-reaction compared to his previous levels, and while Krajinovic could well win, Goffin looks a decent price to me here.

The markets look pretty accurate to me for the other matches - many of which look pretty return-orientated, with the exception of Shapovalov v Fritz, so it's Goffin that we pin our hopes on for day five.

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