US Open Men's Singles Day Three Tips: Kwon capable of surprising Shapovalov

 US Open Men's Singles Day Three Tips: Kwon capable of surprising Shapovalov

There are 16 men's singles matches on Wednesday's schedule at the US Open, and after picking up a winner on day two, Dan Weston discusses the upcoming action...

Murray fights back in match of the day

We got our men's campaign up and running with Christopher O'Connell getting the better of Laslo Djere in four sets, while the match of the day saw Andy Murray fight back from two sets and a break down to Yoshihito Nishioka, who also had a match point in set four and led by a break in set five as well. While Murray will obviously be pleased to get through round one, playing a five-set epic lasting over four and a half hours isn't great at all from an accumulated fatigue perspective.

The overwhelming theme of today's second round schedule is the sheer number of matches which feature very strong favourites around or below the 1.25 mark. Of these, a few look pretty short, so I'll go through those who I think look the most vulnerable.

Krajinovic over-rated for Giron clash

First up in the opening match on the schedule, market love for Filip Krajinovic continues with him being priced as not far from a top 10 player against Marcos Giron today. Krajinovic is 1.11 which looks quite short against a competent hard courter who will break into the top 100 after this tournament. Giron has won over two-thirds of his hard court matches in the last 12 months and isn't bad at all on this surface. If it wasn't for any potential after-effects of a five-set win in round one, I'd be even keener on Giron here for some form of handicap.

In addition, Herbert Hurkacz looks short at 1.24 for his match with Alejandro Davidovich Fokina, as does Alexander Zverev at [1.19] versus Brandon Nakashima. The American wild card, Nakashima, has been extremely impressive at Challenger Tour level and Zverev could well be surprised by his level tonight.

Kwon can compete with Shapovalov

This could also be said for Denis Shapovalov against Soon-woo Kwon, with both players getting four-set wins over their round one opposition. Shapovalov should find Kwon a significant upgrade compared to first round opponent, Sebastian Korda, with Kwon's numbers in Challenger Tour matches on hard court superb.

After a strong win over Andreas Seppi last week in the qualifiers for the Western & Southern Open, Kwon lost a tight three-setter to Norbert Gombos, but has the ability to really push Shapovalov here. The game handicap looks a reasonable way of approaching this, given Shapovalov's fairly serve-orientated nature, and Kwon +5.5 games looks decent at 2.14 on the Exchange. I wouldn't be at all surprised if this line dropped in the run-up to the match.

Kukushkin can get the better of Garin

In other matches, Mikhail Kukushkin faces another clay-courter after a win over Atilla Balazs in round one, with his round two opponent being the Chilean, Christian Garin. Kukushkin is a very marginal underdog to get the win here, which is a little generous to me - I make him a slight favourite, with Garin's hard court numbers being pretty mediocre.

We also the likes of world number one Novak Djokovic, as well as Stefanos Tsitsipas in action, so there are plenty of big names on today's schedule - but a few of them do look a little vulnerable against opposition on an upward ability curve today.