Stefanos Sakellaridis Prediction: Cincinnati

🇺🇸 Cincinnati (Q)

🇬🇷 Sakellaridis +3.5 games · 1.85 odds | 0.75u

• Stefanos Sakellaridis had not played a single match since June 25th.

• 7 weeks without competition. He returned last night, and he eliminated Martin Damm with 10 aces and 80% of points won behind his first serve. We've seen more timid comebacks.

• This 21-year-old boy has a 32-16 record this season, including 12-6 on hard courts. The ranking says 155th vs 119th, the real gap is much smaller than these two numbers.

• And this spread doesn't ask him to win. It just asks him to stay within four games. A player who serves like that last night holds his service games, and a player who holds his service games doesn't get distanced by four games without collapsing.

• A word on the price, because there's an interesting disagreement: the markets give the Greek a 27% chance of winning this match, others 31%. On a preliminary round, when the books don't agree with each other, the handicap is often poorly adjusted as well.

• My reservations now, and there are three. The first is the toughest: they already crossed paths in June in Dublin, and Titouan Droguet won 6-3 6-3, a six-game gap. On their only previous meeting, this ticket would have fallen.

• Then, the Frenchman is the most serious client in these qualifications: 17 wins for 7 losses on hard this season, a run in Montreal last week where he pushed Brandon Nakashima to three sets, and Alexei Popyrin settled last night with 84% behind his first serve.

• Finally, this will be the Greek's second match in 17 hours after 7 weeks off, and it's always on the second that the missing rust is paid for.

• Except that the Frenchman also played last night, and he's at 5 matches in 12 days. The fatigue won't be on one side of the net only, and that's exactly where 3.5 games of margin find their place.