US Open Women's Singles Quarter-Final Tips: Gauff and Muchova justified favourites to progress

• Outright market looking competitive

• Gauff favourite over Ostapenko

• Muchova faces Cirstea test

Sabalenka backed into tournament favourite

Following her win last night, Aryna Sabalenka is now into the 3.259/4 favourite to win the women's singles on the Betfair Exchange, with Cori Gauff at 4.03/1 second favourite.

It's Gauff in action tonight, facing Jelena Ostapenko as opposed to Iga Swiatek, after Ostapenko shocked the world number one on Sunday.

Gauff's serve gives her edge over Ostapenko

On paper at least, Ostapenko is a significant downgrade on Swiatek, and the Betfair Exchange market agrees, pricing Gauff at 1.402/5 to move into the semi-finals. However, it's worth noting that Ostapenko beat Gauff 7-5 6-3 in the last 16 at the Australian Open in January, so the duo have history in Grand Slams already.

Ostapenko's progress to this stage has been pretty tricky, losing a set in every match and needing comeback victories in the last two rounds, so she's rather battled to get to the quarter-finals. Gauff has also needed three three-setters (two via comebacks too) and the last two long clashes ended up with Gauff winning deciding sets pretty easily.

Hard court data suggests Gauff is a warranted favourite, given that she's won almost 5% more service points on hard court this year, with broadly similar return data, and there's a similar dynamic in this tournament as well in the four wins to get to this stage. There's not a lot to argue with in terms of market pricing.

Cirstea getting market support against Muchova

The later quarter-final on the schedule tonight is Sorana Cirstea versus Karolina Muchova, with Muchova getting the better of the Romanian last month in Canada, winning 7-5 6-4 priced up at about 1.454/9 pre-match. Despite that, Muchova's price is bigger today, at a current 1.538/15.

I suspect that this is due to Cirstea beating Bencic and Rybakina in the last two rounds, and Muchova has an edge on both service and return data.

Matches between the two players in the past haven't been serve-oriented, and there's certainly no value in Cirstea as an underdog here in my view.

However, I'd like to see Muchova more towards the 1.654/6 mark to consider there to be some value, and unless the market drifts, that price won't happen.