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Market strong on Djokovic's chances
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Long-shot winner increasingly unlikely
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Paul the pick in quarter three
Djokovic supported while Alcaraz drifts
There's been a fair degree of market movement since the US Open draw with Novak Djokovic shortening around 10 ticks into 2.3411/8 from 2.546/4, and Carlos Alcaraz drifting to 3.052/1 as Djokovic's status as tournament favourite continues to firm up.
Second tier players also lack market support
Not only this, though, but both second-tier players on the tournament winner market on the Exchange - Daniil Medvedev, now at 13.525/2 and Jannik Sinner 19.018/1 have also been fairly friendless in the market, and there's no other player priced below 40.039/1 in what looks like a pretty top-heavy outright market.
Both Medvedev and Sinner were placed in the top half of the draw (Alcaraz's half), which explains the drifts on the trio. Djokovic got a really pleasant draw with the main threat in his quarter being Taylor Fritz, and then the weakest quarter (Q3) which will yield his potential semi-final opponent. Djokovic couldn't have hand-picked his draw much better.
Previously identified quarter winner options with tough draws
In the pre-draw preview, we mentioned about the avenue of potential quarter winners, with Taylor Fritz, Hubert Hurkacz and Alex de Minaur three possible options to discuss once we became aware of their draw.
Fritz, as mentioned, is in Djokovic's bracket which makes him a no-go, while both Hurkacz and de Minaur were drawn in the second quarter, which features Medvedev, as well as other strong players such as Matteo Berretini and Andrey Rublev. Several veterans in that quarter, including Gael Monfils and the soon to be retiring John Isner, could make things difficult for a higher ranked player in an isolated match as well.
I was rather hoping that I'd get one of the trio placed in a bracket with seeded players like Casper Ruud and Holger Rune, but that wasn't the case. However, Ruud and Rune have been drawn together in what looks like a wide-open third quarter.
Paul can be supported in weakest third quarter
In that, Frances Tiafoe, Tommy Paul and Sebastian Korda will be fancying their chances of making the latter stages, while Jiri Lehecka, if not fatigued, could pick up market support given that he's playing in the Winston Salem final tonight against Sebastian Baez.
The quarter winner markets aren't yet available here on Betfair, but given the level that Paul has been playing at lately - he beat Alcaraz in Toronto and then pushed him to three sets in a close match in Cincinnati the week after - I'm surprised he's as big as around 7/1 to win quarter three in the general marketplace. There's not a lot of evidence to suggest that Holger Rune, the general market favourite for quarter three, is a better player on hard court currently.
I'll be returning throughout the week with daily previews, so keep an eye out for those, and we have some cracking first-round matches on the schedule with Ugo Humbert facing Matteo Berrettini, Alexander Bublik against Dominic Thiem and arguably the highlight of the round being Stefanos Tsitsipas versus Milos Raonic. This has the potential to be a real battle of the big servers so I'll discuss the effects of that in my daily column ahead of that clash.