ATP Toronto Day Five Tips

ATP Toronto Day Five Tips: Markets accurate as tournament approaches business end

Quarter-final action is on today's schedule in Toronto, and with matches getting underway at 17:00 UK time, our tennis columnist, Dan Weston, returns to preview the day ahead...

Medvedev and Tsitsipas the market leaders

Most pre-match favourites progressed from yesterday's third round matches to set up some fascinating quarter-finals today. The two outright leaders, Daniil Medvedev and Stefanos Tsitsipas, both made it through in straight sets and have shortened in the outright market, with Medvedev at 2.44 and Tsitsipas 3.25, and no other player in single-digit pricing at the time of writing.

In-form Ruud a test for Tsitsipas

Tsitsipas gets the schedule underway today with a clash against the in-form Casper Ruud, who has won three tournaments back-to-back on clay and is now 13 unbeaten. The duo have only met once before, in the last 16 in Madrid, when Ruud actually won in straight sets as a heavy pre-match underdog.

Despite the recent clay form of Ruud, there's still a discrepancy between the duo on hard court, Tsitsipas has a higher percentage of service and return points won on the surface in the last 12 months, and the market line of Tsitsipas at 1.30 looks about right to me.

Opelka needing variance to be on his side again

The market being pretty accurate is a common theme today, as is often commonplace in the latter stages of major events where the ability level of most players is pretty well known - I don't see pre-match value in any of the matches.

In the second match on the schedule, Roberto Bautista-Agut has the market edge over Reilly Opelka. The American didn't break opponent Lloyd Harris' serve yesterday but nicked two tiebreaks in sets two and three - he won a total of just 23% of return points in the match.

Assuming that scenario continues, Opelka will need to be on the positive side of variance again today, against the Spaniard who should be able to put some decent pressure on the strong serve of Opelka. Bautista-Agut at 1.70 looks about right to me.

Medvedev a solid favourite over Hurkacz

Moving towards the latter matches on the card, Daniil Medvedev is a similar price to his outright market rival for his match against Hubert Hurkacz, and is just 1.28 to get revenge on the Pole who defeated him in five sets in the fourth round of Wimbledon just over a month ago. That looks about right to me, although there's a rather similar dynamic here to Tsitsipas v Ruud, with a rapidly improving player facing one of the market leaders.

Isner clash is on Monfils racquet

Finally, it's tricky to analyse John Isner versus Gael Monfils, which could be a high-variance encounter given Isner's style and the inconsistency of Monfils. The Frenchman came into this event with a very poor record this year but peak Monfils would make a mockery of his 2.84 market price, so it will be fascinating to see how he competes against the big-serving American tonight.