Caution advised on day one
With a few more warm-up events taking place on the women's tour as opposed to the men's tour, there's been more scope for WTA players to get more time on court in advance of the US Open, which starts today in New York. There's an abundance of action on day one, but as always with Grand Slams first rounds, it usually pays to be circumspect and to pick our spots.
A number of big names take to the courts, with Naomi Osaka - the joint tournament favourite - in action in the night match against Misaki Doi, while Anett Kontaveit, Petra Martic, Petra Kvitova and Karolina Pliskova are also among the heavy favourites to start day one with wins.
Mladenovic struggling with double faults
From a value perspective, we have to focus on some of the lower-profile matches, with several catching my eye. Kristina Mladenovic has hardly impressed of late, retiring against a player ranked outside the top 600 in an exhibition in France towards the end of July, and then getting beaten easily by Ekaterina Alexandrova in Palermo on slow clay, serving 20 double faults in 13 service games.
A move to hard court hasn't heralded much change. Mladenovic did beat Anastasija Sevastova in New York last week but again, served a high amount of double faults, and Sevastova has been struggling a little for a while also. She also served 10 against Elise Mertens in round two, where she failed to sustain a decent level across three sets.
Baptiste an option on the game handicap
Given this, it's tough to make a case for Mladenovic even against lowly-ranked opposition. Today she faces wild card Hailey Baptiste, an 18 year old who has yet to break the top 200, but Baptiste's numbers from a lower level aren't bad at all - she's made several finals and semi-finals on hard courts in ITFs in the last year. We should be able to get 1.855/6 about Baptiste +5.5 games in line with general market pricing as the market develops in the next few hours.
Kozlova and Peterson with potential chances
Kateryna Kozlova hasn't played much since January but if she is at a decent level, she looks to be generously priced at around 1.758/11 against Whitney Osuigwe, while Anna Blinkova is a capable player and looks under-rated by the market at 5.409/2 versus Jennifer Brady, who is improving but is yet to translate those numbers into particularly strong data.
Rebecca Peterson hasn't achieved much since the tour resumed but I don't have particular faith in her opponent, Kirsten Flipkens either. The market appears to be valuing Flipkens' run in New York from qualifying to round two last week, but she was thrashed by Jo Konta in round two, winning just 33% of points in the match. Peterson looks a bit big at 2.0621/20.
However, it's tough to make an overwhelming case for any player today, given the lack of game time for most, and while there are several other players that look to big, including Lisette Cabrera, Jasmine Paolini and Alison van Uytvanck, I'll stick with Baptiste on the game handicap as today's tentative recommendation.
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Recommended bets
Back Hailey Baptiste +5.5 games at around 1.855/6 to beat Kristina Mladenovic