
Before I move on to this week’s ATP Tour tennis action At Winston-Salem, I’ll provide a quick run-down of last week’s action at the Cincinnati Masters 1000 Series. No joy with last week’s two selections as Federer lost early to a resurgent Rublev who was a qualifier and Bautista Agut failed to back up his straight set’s win at Cincinnati last week against a resurgent veteran Gasquet at the quarter-final stage losing in three sets on this occasion.
There will be a new winner of the Cincinnati Masters 1000 Series this year as ninth seed and Rogers Cup finalist Medvedev caused the upset of the week beating defending champion and world number one Djokovic in the semi-finals on Saturday and Medvedev was due to face sixteenth seed and Masters 1000 Series final debutant Goffin in tonight’s final.
This week’s ATP Tour action is at Winston-Salem in the USA and it’s the tournament before the final Grand Slam of the season the US Open at Flushing Meadow, which gets underway on Sunday night. This year’s event has not attracted a top-class field, which is understandable with the US Open just around the corner, but it improves the chances of the lower-ranked players and players on the come-back road from injury to win a title, like former World and British number one Andy Murray, who is playing his second singles tournament after losing his opener against Cincinnati semi-finalist Gasquet last week.
The highest ranked player in the draw is top-seed and French veteran Paire who is ranked 29th in the world, Canadian NextGen star Shapovalov is the second seed and there’s a clutch of other decent hard court players like Britain’s Dan Evans seeded five, American veteran Sam Querrey seeded six, rising Serb star Krajinovic seeded eight, American NextGen star Tiafoe and Spanish veteran Lopez seeded sixteen to name a few
The top seed has a poor record at Winston-Salem winning one of the last eight titles (Bautista Agut 2017) and they were never a losing finalist during this period, which does not bode well for top-seed Paire’s chances this week. The second seed has not performed much better winning one of the last eight titles (Anderson 2015) and they were a losing finalist twice during this period (last Bautista Agut 2016), which does not bode well for Shapovalov’s chances this week.
Seeded players have a good record at Winston-Salem since its inception, a player seeded no higher than nine won seven of the last eight titles (last Bautista Agut 2017) and a player seeded no higher than fifteen was a losing finalist four times during this period (last Bautista Agut 2016). Medvedev became the first unseeded player to win this title last season and an unseeded player reached four of the last eight titles (last Dzhumur 2017).
From an outright tournament betting perspective past statistics suggest siding with a seeded player no higher than nine, excluding the top two seeds, to win the title and it’s worth siding with an unseeded player or two as they’ve reached five of the last eight finals. To find out who I’m tipping to win Winston-Salem please select one of the Pay Pal buttons on the home page.