2018 US Open Betting Preview & Prediction

2018 US Open Betting Preview & Prediction

Written by on August 27, 2018

It’s a great week to be a tennis betting fan, as Monday sees the start of the 2018 US Open at Flushing Meadow in New York City. With the tournament reaching a milestone year, it is sure to be quite the celebration in NYC, but fun aside, we need to start thinking about who might come out on top in the singles events. For the purposes of this piece, we are going to focus on the men. As far as Grand Slam events go, picking the winner has become a little predictable when you consider that Federer, Nadal, or Djokovic have split the last 7 between them. Can one of the younger generation of players break through at this tournament and win or are we simply going to see more of the same?

2018 US Open Betting Preview & Prediction

If it’s to be one of those three men that wins once again at the US Open, then Rafael Nadal would look to be the smart money. He has what is, on paper at least, the easiest path of the three, with Juan martin Del Potro and Grigor Dimitrov the biggest names that he is likely to face. That said, do not sleep on the possibility of an opening round upset, as Nadal’s meeting with fellow Spaniard David Ferrer is by no means a slam dunk. Yes, Ferrer has slipped down the rankings in recent years, but let’s not forget that he was, at one time, the #3 player in the world. He still has enough in the tank to cause some problems for Nadal. The good news for Nadal is that he would not need to face either Novak Djokovic or Roger Federer in the early rounds of this tournament, as those two are on the opposite half of the draw. The bad news for tennis fans is that one of those two men will go no further than the quarter-finals, as that is when they would meet if they are both able to get through the opening rounds unscathed. While their head to head meetings are about as close to evenly matched as it gets, it is Djokovic who has had the edge on hard courts in their more recent clashes, beating Federer in 4 of their last 5 hard court match-ups.

If a winner is going to come from outside of the big 3, who is it most likely to be?

Is Andy Murray a safe bet to win the 2018 US Open? You would certainly need to keep an eye on Andy Murray, who will be returning to Grand Slam action after an extended layoff through injury. While it would certainly be great to see the Scotsman back in contention for a major tournament once again, it may be asking a little too much of him to make a deep run here. Stranger things have happened, though, and if he can get past Del Potro in that section of the draw, he may just build some serious momentum. If I was asked to pick a potential winner from outside the traditional pack, I would be willing to stick a little bit of money on Alexander Zverev. While has made a habit of going out early at the US Open, I think we might be looking at a bit of a breakthrough performance here. No-one on the ATP tour has won more matches (43) than Zverev this season, and after going out at Wimbledon, he added former tennis great Ivan Lendl to his coaching team. We all know what Lendl did for Andy Murray, and he may well do the same for this young man.