Indian Wells Men's Day Five Tips

Indian Wells Men's Day Five Tips: Shapovalov a nice price to beat Opelka

The Indian Wells Masters moves into the third round, and following the exit of Alexander Zverev on Sunday, Dan Weston returns to preview the day ahead...

After Rafa Nadal and Stefanos Tsitsipas edged final set tiebreaks in their second round matches on Saturday, Alexander Zverev was unable to repeat the feat against Tommy Paul overnight, losing a final set breaker against the American.

Andy Murray (against Alexander Bublik) and Felix Auger-Aliassime were other big-name casualties, with the Canadian, Auger-Aliassime, losing a decider to the improving Dutchman, Botic van de Zandschulp.

Markets latching on to improving youngsters

This neatly brings us on to round three, which commences today, and there's eight matches on the card with action from the top half of the draw. Both Daniil Medvedev and Rafa Nadal are priced around the 1.15 mark to progress against Gael Monfils and Dan Evans, respectively, although peak Monfils could well trouble Medvedev in these slower than average hard court conditions.

A storyline for tonight's matches focuses on how the market is taking into account the rapid improvement from some younger players.

Carlos Alcaraz Garcia, who has really kicked on already this season, is a solid 1.47 favourite against his countryman, Roberto Bautista-Agut, who is 15 years his senior. The slower conditions should really help Alcaraz, but the market has taken something of a leap of faith on him with this pricing.

Continuing with this theme of improving young players, Jenson Brooksby was a player that I was keen to see opening lines for his match with Stefanos Tsitsipas. I've written a lot in the past about how good I think Brooksby can be, and his rout of Karen Khachanov on Saturday illustrates as much.

Brooksby also comes into the tournament in good form, reaching the final of Dallas at the start of February, and losing a tight match to Alexander Zverev in Acapulco, but the market has latched on to his ability and his price of [2.36 ] against Tsitsipas looks about right to me.

I was hoping for in excess of 3.0, with Tsitsipas often over-rated by the market, but I was rather disappointed.

Back Shapovalov to beat Opelka again

In other matches, I don't mind the price of Denis Shapovalov against Reilly Opelka. The Canadian is 1.9 to get the job done tonight, and regular readers may recollect that I tipped up Shapovalov against Opelka at the Australian Open recently.

That day, Shapovalov started around the 1.85 mark after receiving some market support, and today we can get slightly bigger.

Considering this, and the slower conditions which should negate Opelka's strong serve to some degree, I'm looking towards Shapovalov to bring up the double for us against the American tonight.

Finally, British interest in the men's singles focuses on Cameron Norrie, and he's 1.23 to get past the inconsistent Georgian, Nikoloz Basilashvili.

While Norrie is in great form, I can't help thinking this price is pretty short against an opponent with a decent peak level. Norrie was around 1.60 in his three-set win here against Basilashvili in October last year, and there's a rather big difference between his pricing for that match and today.