Tennis DFS plays for the Western & Southern Open Monday slate

It’s been a wild first two days of tennis at the Western & Southern Open, with a number of seeds taking an early exit. Over the next three weeks, the ATP and WTA will be in a bubble located in New York for both the Western & Southern Open (Cincinnati) and the US Open. Both events will take place in the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, host of the US Open. Cincinnati uses a Deco Turf hardcourt, so previous results are irrelevant with the USTA’s move to Laykold in New York.

Supposedly, the courts are looking extremely quick, contrary to the belief that they might be on the slower side as most Laykold hardcourts are. While names like Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer, Ash Barty and Simona Halep are absent, there is still a significant number of high-quality names in these fields, and should offer a thrilling three weeks of tennis.

This article will guide you through each slate, focusing on a trio of plays to build your core around (top spend, middle tier, value), along with match predictions for the remainder of the slate, and a power ranked Cheat Sheet so you can see how my confidence level is in each tier. With that, let’s dive into the Monday slate.

Dominic Thiem ($10,500)

There was nobody on the ATP side more active during the break than Thiem, who played the Adria Tour (before COVID-19 destroyed it), a number of small events in Austria, his organized Thiem Seven event and Ultimate Tennis Showdown. He legitimately looked like the best men's player on the planet in the latter half of the exhibition calendar. This will actually be Thiem’s first professional event on hardcourts since his run at the Australian Open Final, where he was a set away from collecting his first Grand Slam title. He’ll draw Serbian Filip Krajinovic, who played well before the shutdown, and was active himself during exhibitions, but this is simply a case of Thiem being the far superior player. While both pop inside the top 20 in UTR (Thiem sixth, Krajinovic 18th), there’s a 140-point difference in elo rating, which actually suggests Thiem has a 68.8% win probability, which is a significant drop from Vegas’ implied 87.5% probability. The courts look incredibly quick through two days, and Thiem owns a 14-10 record on hardcourts recorded as “very fast,” while Krajinovic is just 2-6. Thiem’s defensive skills are among the best on tour, and he should thrive off the conditions.

Petra Kvitová ($9,100)

There might not be a scarier player on these quick New York courts than the lefty Kvitová. We’ve seen how dominant her serve can be on the advantage side, using both a slider serve and kick serve to take her opponents off the court and open the entire middle for easy winners. That makes her service play extremely dangerous as you’ll have to break her within the first five points or be staring down a break-point opportunity on that advantage side. Kvitová and Marie Bouzková have never met previously, so it’ll be an even bigger challenge for Bouzková. The difference in elo ratings imply an 83% win probability for Kvitová, while the difference in UTR has Kvitová fifth versus Bouzková at 46th. Kvitová played a number of exhibitions in both the Czech Republic and Germany, so rust shouldn’t be an issue, but historically, her serve has sometimes disappeared, and that’s really the only way she loses here. As long as her first serve percentage is above 60%, she’ll get through without much drama.

Karolína Muchová ($7,100)

Lastly, we turn to Kvitová’s countrymate Karolina Muchová. I am fading Naomi Osaka hard here. Osaka hasn’t played a single exhibition match since the shutdown, and she had last played in early February in Fed Cup, getting pummelled off the court by Sara Sorribes Tormo on the Spanish red clay in what may well have been the worst match of Osaka’s career, hitting 50 unforced errors in a 0-6, 3-6 defeat. This, after a really deflated performance against Coco Gauff in Melbourne. She switched coaches before the end of 2019, and it did not seem to be clicking initially in 2020, so between all that and the lack of play over the last six months, it’s hard to believe peak Osaka will show up in New York. For example, we’ve seen Serena Williams, Elena Rybakina, Aryna Sabalenka, and Simona Halep all struggle finding form in their first events post shutdown. Rybakina was the only one to lose her first match back, who was also the only one to face a Top 50 player. Muchová is ranked 26th (and 22nd in UTR).

Other match predictions

Novak Djokovic over Ricardas Berankis (Note: Djokovic withdrew from doubles, but that is supposedly precautionary)
Serena Williams over Arantxa Rus
Daniil Medvedev over Marcos Giron
Elise Mertens over Kristina Mladenovic
Taylor Fritz over Aljaz Bedene
Bernarda Pera over Dayana Yastremska
Felix Auger-Aliassime over Tennys Sandgren
Madison Keys over Ons Jabeur
Andy Murray over Alexander Zverev
Johanna Konta over Kirsten Flipkens
Ekaterina Alexandrova over Christina McHale
Aryna Sabalenka over CiCi Bellis
Marton Fucsovics over Grigor Dimitrov
Amanda Anisimova over Jessica Pegula
Maria Sakkari over Yulia Putintseva
Jan-Lennard Struff Struff over Denis Shapovalov
Daniel Evans over Milos Raonic
Pablo Carreno-Busta over Karen Khachanov
Vera Zvonareva over Laura Siegemund
Reilly Opelka over David Schwartzman

Cheat sheet

(Players are listed in order of preference)

Top tier: Dominic Thiem, Petra Kvitova, Daniil Medvedev, Madison Keys, Novak Djokovic, Taylor Fritz, Felix Auger-Aliassime, Serena Williams

Middle tier: Maria Sakkari, Ekaterina Alexandrova, Amanda Anisimova, Johanna Konta

Value tier: Karolina Muchova, Reilly Opelka, Marton Fucsovics, Pablo Carreno-Busta, Daniel Evans, Jan-Lennard Struff, Bernarda Pera, Andy Murray, Vera Zvonareva