Hubert Hurkacz vs Alexei Popyrin (Western and Southern Open): Friday, August 18th

Poor stuff from Daniil Medvedev, who just seems that when his first serve isn’t landing at a high rate, he’s in big trouble.

For Friday’s ATP preview from the tennis in Cincinnati, our preview focuses on Hubert Hurkacz vs Alexei Popyrin.

In this article:

• Expert Tip
• Hubert Hurkacz Recent Form
• Alexei Popyrin Recent Form
• Stat of the Match
• Gamble Responsibly

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Hubert Hurakcz vs Alexei Popyrin Expert Tip

Big chance for Alexei Popyrin at the Western & Southern Open, as he has a chance to reach the semifinals of a Masters 1000 event – an event he’s playing as a lucky loser (someone who lost in qualifying and got in via a withdrawal from another player), no less!

If there’s one player he has a chance against, it has to be Hubert Hurkacz. The big Pole lacks on the return of serve, and Popyrin has plenty of power to exploit that.

He may have to topple the big man in the big moments or in tiebreaks, but he’s absolutely in with a chance.

Read on for more expert insights.

• Expert Tips: Popyrin +1.5 sets at 1.89 with Pinnacle, using 2/10 stakes, Popyrin to win at 3.75 with Bet365, using 1/10 stakes & Over 0.5 tiebreaks in the match at 1.80 with Bet365, using 2/10 stakes.

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Hubert Hurkacz Recent Form

It was an impressive win for Hurkacz in the Round of 16 over Stefanos Tsitsipas. It took just over an hour, but let’s look at it a little closer and apply some context. First, Tsitsipas has always struggled against big servers on quicker hard courts.

Secondly, for all intents and purposes, he gifted the break in each set to Hurkacz with extremely poor service games.

Finally, when we look at Hurkacz’s tournament as a whole, we can also see a few relatively poor wins for how he was priced in the markets.

He simply doesn’t lose by margin or win by margin most of the time. There are obviously exceptions to the rule (like Thursday’s match), but in a game of probabilities, we can certainly find value when looking to back wagers that would correlate to close matches.

As a poor returner himself taking on a serve-oriented natural hard courter like Popyrin, I’m happy to do just that.

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Alexei Popyrin Recent Form

Talk about a career season for the 24-year-old Aussie.

Now inside the world’s top-60, Popyrin has found a new level in 2023, thanks to a much smarter gameplan in matches.

He played an incredibly intelligent match on Thursday against an volatile power player in Emil Ruusuvuori, utilising his slice to keep rallies alive and avoid hitting errors himself, while also dictating with his power when presented with the opportunity.

Popyrin has strong runs this year in Adelaide, Rome, Umag – where he won his second career title, and now Cincinnati. Even more impressive he had to come through qualifying in two of those, while having to brush off a qualifying loss here to reach the quarters.

With a renewed focus on playing smart tennis, combined with his raw talent and ability, the big-serving Aussie can do some damage in the quarters if he plays to his potential.

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Hubert Hurkacz vs Alexei Popyrin H2H – Stat of the Match

The head-to-head here has Hurkacz ahead with two relatively dominant wins on a hard court, but this matchup is a perfect illustration of why that metric can be misleading without context.

For starters, Popyrin in 2021 and 2022 was a far cry from the player we’ve seen push on and beat some really strong players with his improved play this season.

Secondly, both of those matches came at Indian Wells – a tournament and venue famous for its remarkably slow courts. That’s something that allows the poor-returning Hurkacz more time to put balls in play on return and run more down with his grinding, defensive-like play from the baseline.

On the quicker court of Cincinnati, starting points against big serves won’t be nearly as easy and finding consistent pressure on return is far less likely.

The initial point provides the perfect segue to the stat of the match as well.

I want to zoom in on Popyrin’s serving stats at the ATP level on hard courts from last year to his season.

We’ve seen a jump in his hold rate by 7% and that’s led to his overall points won moving above the 50% mark.

His return game may not be all that strong, but smarter play, with better spot serving and fewer mistakes has led to him tightening up his play and taking care of business in his own games.

Odds as at 3:00 am UK Time on August 18th, 2023. Odds may now differ.

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Responsible Gambling

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