Djokovic – Carreno Busta

Novak Djokovic and Pablo Carreno Busta will square off on Thursday in the third round at the ATP Masters Series 1000 event in Cincinnati.

Djokovic returned to action on Tuesday for the first time since winning that epic Wimbledon final against Roger Federer. Nole had a tricky opponent in the form of Sam Querrey, but the Serbian ace looked very sharp and made pretty light work of the big serving American: 7-5 6-1. Maybe the main thing to take from that match is that Djokovic got better and better as the clash went on. He started slow, but he got steadily better and he ended up playing very solid tennis in the later stages of the match.

Carreno Busta had a rather disappointing season so far, particularly considering that he was coming after an excellent 2018. He also struggled with a shoulder injury which kept him sidelined for two and a half months from early February until late April. As a result, he dropped almost 30 spots in the rankings, leaving the Top 50. Here in Cincinnati he passed qualifications (2-0 vs Copil, 2-1 vs Wolf) to get on the main draw, where he defeated Simon (2-0) and Isner (2-1), recording one of his best results of the year so far.

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Djokovic leads the H2H 2-0 (4-1 in sets). Both meetings took place at Monte Carlo on clay, back in 2014 and 2017. You would think that Djokovic holds a matchup advantage over Carreno given the styles of the two players, as Carreno’s smart aggressive game isn`t exactly the type of approach which troubles Novak.

Carreno was extremely excited to get past Isner in the last round, celebrating intensely and showing how much it meant to him. However, it wasn`t a great performance from Carreno, who was clearly on the back foot in the last two sets and survived on serve by the skin of his teeth. In the deciding set tiebreak he looked spent and would have lost if Isner did not suddenly implode. Isner was 3-0 up but started blowing forehand errors all over the place from that point, allowing Carreno to win almost by default.

Isner is not in good form right now, I should know that having bet on his matches in the last few weeks. and he still outplayed Carreno despite losing.

Given Carreno-Busta’s average performance against Big John (and he wasn`t that great in a 7-5 7-6 first round win over Simon either), you can`t give the Spaniard many chances against Djokovic.

Nole impressed against Querrey particularly with how he kept getting better and better throughout the match. He is finding in rhythm, in fact he seems to have already found it, and looks ready to do damage in this tournament.

It will be difficult for Carreno to rack up the points against a guy like Djokovic, who does not give you many gifts. Carreno is very good all around, but doesn`t own a spectacular serve or a special weapon to put Nole under pressure consistently. Nole should come out on top in most rallies, and be able to get opportunities on the Carreno-Busta serve.

I`m picking Djokovic to win this rather easily, so the question remains if we should take the -5,5 handicap, or the under 19,5 games line. I`m going to bet 6-4 6-3 is more likely than 7-6 6-1 or 7-5 6-2, so I will back the under 19,5 games. Prediction: Novak Djokovic – Pablo Carreno-Busta 6-4 6-2.

Pick: under 19,5 games
Odds: 1.92 @ 1xBet
Stake: 7
Possible profit: 6.44
Event date: 15 August