US Open Betting / Sean Calvert / 03 September 2011 /

Roger Federer may not have it all his own way against Marin Cilic whilst one of the great drama queens of the women's Tour could suffer a somewhat dramatic exit after going into her match tonight as the favourite.

Friday at the 2011 US Open began excellently with Robin Haase's early match form against Andy Murray meaning my recommended lay of Murray 3-0 came in quickly.

And those who were on the Dutchman at [11.0] must have made a few quid in-play when he went two sets up, but as I predicted, Haase faded badly and allowed the Scot back into the game with an embarrassing semi-tank.

That's the good news. The bad news is that although my prediction of a long match between Sam Stosur and Nadia Petrova proved correct (it is the longest WTA match of the event so far), we came out on the wrong end of a tight decider.

It was a case of what might have been for Vasek Pospisil too, as he was well ahead against Feliciano Lopez before losing two breakers and with it the match.

So, little reward yesterday, but there's plenty to choose from today, with two potentially classic encounters between Roger Federer and Marin Cilic and Serena Williams against Victoria Azarenka scheduled for the day session on Ashe.

I'll start today with Federer, who looks too short at [1.19] against the in-form Croatian, but the thing that worries me about Cilic is that I'm not convinced about his mental toughness and belief that he can actually beat the Federers of this world. He's still a work in progress at 22 though and should be thereabouts in a year or two.

He might not get a better chance to post a win over Fed onto his CV than today though, with the Swiss maestro's powers on the wane.

Fed should have too much variety in his game for Cilic, but the Swiss has been beaten by big hitters lately, so the bet has to be to lay Federer 3-0 at around [2.0].

There are plenty of outsiders at attractive prices on the men's side today, with Janko Tipsarevic at [2.88], Alexandr Dolgopolov at [2.42], and Tommy Haas at [2.78], worth considering as well, not to mention Marcel Granollers's chances against JC Ferrero.

On the women's side today, I like the look of Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova - or A-Pavs for ease of spelling - to inflict a third successive defeat in their head-to-head series against Jelena Jankovic.

The big hitting 20-year-old Russian is a bit of a dark horse in the women's draw and if she's firing today, she'll have too much for Jankovic to cope with, as was the case in the final of Monterrey on hard-courts earlier this year.

A-Pavs also beat JJ at Indian Wells on hard in 2009 and this one is a classic big hitter versus consistent player encounter in which the value lies with the Russian at around [2.5].

I'm not going to be brave enough to advise backing against Serena Williams today, although I do think that Azarenka is big at [5.6] in what could be a great match-up. Frankly, I'd rather Williams won so that another shrieking banshee be despatched from the tournament for the sake of my eardrums.

Recommended bets:

Lay Federer 3-0 v Cilic at [2]
Back Pavlyuchenkova to beat Jankovic at [2.5].

Follow Sean on twitter during the US Open @seancalvert1

'.$sign_up['title'].'

'; } } ?>

:

:

:

?

: