Daily match picks

Medvedev (1.95) v Thiem (2.04)

Due to start at 11 pm

Dominic Thiem leads their previous matches 2-1. They last met on a hard court at the Rogers Cup, Canada in August last year. Daniil Medvedev won comfortably in 2 sets. Thiem’s wins were on a clay court in Barcelona in April last year and on an indoor court In St Petersburg in 2018. That match went to a third set tie break.

Overall results in the last 12 months are strong for both players but slightly favour Thiem. Hard court results are excellent for both men but favour Medvedev.

Medvedev hasn’t lost a set so far. His toughest test was against Andrey Rublev in the last round. Two of the three sets went to tie breaks. He didn’t face a single break point. He has been broken 3 times in 15 sets. He reached the final in 2019 losing to Nadal in 5 sets.

Thiem has lost just 1 set in the tournament. That was in the third round against Marin Cilic. He has been broken 8 times.

Stats for the tournament favour Medvedev on serve and everything else favours Thiem but there is very little between them. The sets are going to be very close and I won’t be surprised if it goes to a fifth set. I give Medvedev the edge on these courts. Back him around 2.30. Lay the set 1 winner.

 

Third round

Sasnovich (2.24) v Putintseva (1.79)

Due to start at 4 pm

Putintseva has won both their previous matches. They last met in Sydney in January 2016. She won on a hard court in 2 easy sets. Their other match was on clay in 2014.

Their overall win percentages are very even in the last 12 months and also in 2020. Putintseva has better hard court results.

Sasnovich struggled in the opening set in the first round match with Di Lorenzo but started her second round match at 100mph. She was underdog against Vondrousova but lost just 3 games. She reached the second round last year. The last time she won 2 main draw matches on a hard court in the same week was at the 2019 Australian Open. She has held 90% of her service games.

Putintseva has been the strong favourite in both her matches. She has lost a total of 10 games and 5 of those were breaks of serve. She reached the third round in Doha in February and the third round at the Australian Open. She made the third round at last year’s US Open.

I can see this being very tight. There’s a good chance that it goes to 3 sets. We have some value on Sasnovich and if she can serve as well as she did in the last round she has a great chance. Lay Putintseva if she breaks first and remove the liability when Sasnovich breaks back. Lay the set 1 winner.

Update: Sasnovich made the quicker start and took a 4-0 lead. Putintseva got one of the breaks back but Sasnovich broke again to take the set. In set 2 Sasnovich was broken first but immediately broke back. Putintseva broke her another 2 times to level the match. In set 3 Sasnovich held serve in the opening game but Putintseva won the next 6 games.
Putintseva won 3-6, 6-2, 6-1