It's been a successful tournament on the match bets this US Open and the latest big-priced winner was the 6.411/2 about Carlos Alcaraz beating Jannik Sinner 3-2 in a match that was close to the longest-ever in the tournament's history.
I said at the start of the tournament that this was likely to be a really open one on the men's side, but 301.0300/1 shot Karen Khachanov making the semi finals wasn't in the script (or the betting slips of many bettors I should imagine).
Khachanov did get the job done for those who followed my handicap advice on the Russian against Nick Kyrgios a few days ago, but instead of it being my outright Matteo Berrettini that takes on Khachanov, it's Casper Ruud.
And Ruud is in with a chance of ending this tournament as the new world number one, which would be something special for him and for Norwegian tennis.
Ruud says he's "trying not to think about it" but it won't be far away from his thoughts during Friday's semi final clash with Khachanov and I wonder if it will affect Ruud on the day?
Quite possibly, but with his recent matches being played on the vast Arthur Ashe Stadium Court the Norwegian can utilise a similar strategy to that of Rafael Nadal because he's got a ton of room to return serve deep and defend.
It worked a treat against a woeful Berrettini in their quarter final clash and Khachanov's game is quite similar to that of Berrettini in the sense that it's a big serve, big forehand and they try to win with power.
Medvedev came unstuck against Kyrgios from playing so deep, but Kyrgios is very comfortable playing drop shots, mixing up the spins and attacking the net and I'm not seeing much of that variety in Khachanov (and Berrettini).
What I do expect from Khachanov is that I doubt he'll play as poorly as Berrettini, who's assessment of his performance was honest: "He [Ruud] played really well, and I played really badly. It was probably my worst day in the tournament at the most important moment."
Khachanov has at best plateaued and at worst faded away since his win over Novak Djokovic at the 2018 Paris Masters
In terms of stats for the tournament so far there's nothing to choose between Khachanov and Ruud in their combined service points won/return points won totals, with both men on 109.
Ruud has done a little better in terms of breaking serve and he's slightly better on return points won (40% compared to 38% for Khachanov) and he's got much more recent experience of playing these big matches, so he's the right favourite for me.
Khachanov has at best plateaued and at worst faded away since his win over Novak Djokovic at the 2018 Paris Masters, with zero titles to his name and only two finals after that memorable victory in Bercy.
These major semi finals and finals are notoriously tricky to bet given what's at stake and the nerves involved, but this feels to me like a match that Ruud will be able to win and backing him to do that 3-1 at 4.03/1 looks the bet here.
Tiafoe can capitalise on Alcaraz fatigue
The second semi final is, in my view, tougher to call because of the accumulated fatigue on the part of Carlos Alcaraz, who faces what should be a fresher opponent in Frances Tiafoe.
We profited nicely from Alcaraz's epic five-set win over Jannik Sinner on Wednesday (or the early hours of Thursday to be more accurate), but what has that match taken out of him on top of the five-setter against Marin Cilic?
The Sinner match was the second-longest in US Open history and the latest finish the tournament has seen at 10 minutes shy of 3am local time, so Alcaraz won't have had much sleep.
He'll have had a day off to recover before he has to play again and I suspect he'll be able to tough it out, but it could well be the case that Alcaraz starts the semi final a little slowly.
Tiafoe had a much earlier finish to his quarter final win over Andrey Rublev and perhaps the most impressive thing about Tiafoe this tournament as far as stats are concerned is that he's made the semis while making just 51% of his first serves.
Tiafoe has held serve 88% of the time, despite making a fraction over half his first serves
The American has had to rely a lot on second serve this fortnight and he's won 56% of those second serve points, which is the same percentage as Alcaraz.
Indeed, Tiafoe has held serve 88% of the time, despite making a fraction over half his first serves, so his evolving all-court game has helped him out a lot this fortnight and been one of the features of his deep run.
Both men have recorded exactly the same combined service points won/return points won total of 107 this fortnight, but Alcaraz has managed to break serve 39% of the time, which is huge on hard courts.
His hold/break total is a massive 119, which puts him at elite level, and I'm slightly tempted by the Alcaraz to lose the first set and win option at 5.04/1 here.
The more circumspect option is to take Tiafoe to make a strong start with the crowd once again behind him giving him that boost and he's a 2.255/4 chance to win it, which will be the second leg of a big-priced double for Friday.
We saw against Rafa Nadal that Tiafoe has the power off both wings to rush players that usually like a bit of time on the ball and if Tiafoe serves better than he has done yet this fortnight he stands a good chance of getting off to a good start.
This double would pay a tasty 9.08/1 if successful, so some way over the magical 6.05/1 mark.