tennis | Thursday, August 25, 2022 7:59 AM

Thursday Tennis Best Bet: US Open Men’s Qualifiers, Hugo Grenier vs Francesco Passaro

Jon Reid

Hugo Grenier vs Francesco Passaro Best Bet: Thursday, August 25th

Nice clean, straightforward win from Enzo Couacaud on Wednesday in his first qualifying round match against Matheus Pucinelli de Almeida.

For Thursday, it’s onto the second round, and for the third straight day, 32 men’s matches will be contested. With just two more matches until players book a spot in the prestigious main draw, everything is on the line.

Let’s delve a bit more into the match between Hugo Grenier and Francesco Passaro.

In this article:

Hugo Grenier vs Francesco Passaro Preview
Hugo Grenier vs Francesco Passaro Best Bet

Hugo Grenier vs Francesco Passaro Preview

August 25th, 16:00 UK Time

A nice surface edge to take advantage of in this matchup, likely thanks to the opening round performances from both Grenier and Passaro.

While Grenier is still the favourite, the games handicap is much lower than expected and the price for him to win is also relatively cheap in this one.

While Passaro did manage to come through his first qualifying match in straight sets, he was a strong favourite to do so against Australian Marc Polmans, who was returning from injury (perhaps too soon to collect a nice grand slam qualifiers paycheque) and hadn’t played in over six months. The two sets were also rather close affairs, as the young Italian won by just three total games.

Without hard-court experience at even the Challenger level to speak of, Passaro should still be priced as a rather sizable underdog. Other than his opening round encounter, he hadn’t played on hard courts since February at the ITF level where he lost to plenty of players far worse than the Frenchman he’ll have to take down in the second round.

Grenier, on the other hand, struggled mightily with a very athletic and strong server and hitter in Giulio Zeppieri (another very good Italian prospect). Having been on the Challenger Tour far longer and having played many more hard-court matches, though, he was a much more difficult opponent for Grenier.

Matchup wise, the tall French native should also fare well. He constructs points well and is rock solid from the baseline, while also possessing a strong first serve that can earn him cheap points.

For his height, he’s also a pretty strong mover and returner, covering the court very efficiently.

Hugo Grenier vs Francesco Passaro Best Bet

For me, this comes down to the fact that Grenier is better on the surface, in better form (he also won his previous tournament on hard courts – a Challenger in Segovia, Spain) and isn’t all that error-prone.

In a power rating kind of context, the young Italian is still an above average ITF-level player, while Grenier would have to be considered a very strong Challenger Tour professional. That kind of gulf in talent should make this handicap much closer to -3.5 games or -4 games.