USO - Day 6

First not posted my picks here, shame because it was one rare positive day:
Steve Johnson - Ernests Gulbis: pick Johnson 1 unit @3.00 +2
Philipp Kohlschreiber - Benoit Paire: pick Paire 1 unit @4.33 -1
Fabio Fognini - Guillermo Garcia-Lopez: pick Fognini 2 units @2.2 +2.4
Janko Tipsarevic - Brian Baker: pick Baker 2 units @4.5 -2
Na Li - Laura Robson: pick Robson 1 unit @6.5 +5.5
Petra Kvitová - Pauline Parmentier: pick Parmentier 1 unit @13.00 - 1
Maria Sharapova - Mallory Burdette: pick Burdette 1 unit @19 -1
Maria Sharapova - Mallory Burdette: pick Over 16.5 games 3 units @1.90 -3
+1.9 to close a negative august.

Today's picks:
Marin Cilic - Kei Nishikori: pick Nishikori -2.5 games 2 units @1.96 -2
Nishikori leads the head to head 2-1, all on hardcourt.
Neat run so far for the japanese, with two 3-0 wins over Andreozzi and Smyczek.
Two marathon for the croatian, 3-2 wins over Matosevic and Brands.
The time spent on court could make the difference on the long run here.
Nishikori is a hardcourter that mostly practice in the US, on this kind of surfaces.
Though not an hard hitter, he shows not relevant weak, but also strong, points that makes him a player hard to read.
The match will be played from baseline, with long rallies and Nishi's physical preparation and agility on side-movements added Cilic's previus rounds efforts will do the difference.

Jeremy Chardy - Martin Klizan: pick Klizan 2 units @2.20 +3
1-1 the head to head, both on clay.
By far the less interesting match today, though I find the odd nice.
Both have had a busy season with many match played and also some finals at Challenger level:
37/20 for Chardy, 1 title in Noumea (hardcourt) and runner-up in Tunis (clay)
39/17 for Klizan, 4 titles Rabat, Marrakech, Bordeaux and San Marino and runner-up in Prague (all on clay).
With his power Chardy better suit to hardcourt while Klizan baseline defensive play makes him a solid claycourter.
Klizan's skills on hard haven't fully showed themselves though since this his only his 6th match on this surface so far in this season and his results are encouraging since he's never been great favoured, while as huge underdog took Isner to the third set in Winston-Salem and defaeted Tsonga in R2.
His defensive skills, his not heavy balls harder to deliver for the opponent and his crossed-forehand on his opponent backhand (Klizan is leftie) could cause many problems to Chardy who can easily hit tons of unforced errors.

Tomas Berdych - Sam Querrey: pick Querrey 2 units @3.40 -2
Berdych leads the head to heads 2-1 last one just one week ago in Winston-Salem.
The difference to me is smaller than the one made by the odd.
Both hard hitters, and solid servers, the difference will be made by few points.
The support for the local player and the possibility to win the point in other ways than a baseline forehand could be important weapons in a long, tensed match.

Gilles Simon - Mardy Fish: pick Simon 2 units @3.25 -2
Simon leads the head to head 2-1 (1-1 on hard and 1-0 on clay)
Though local and with decent result on the US Open Series, the fact that Fish has played bit too much recently and above all the fifth set battle at the previous round could be aan handicap for the american who's struggled with physical problems for the whole season.
Both solid serve-returners, could battle for long if none of them take a wide advantage, and a long match will favor Simon.

Sara Errani - Olga Puchkova: pick Puchkova 1 unit @13 -1
Again against Errani, this time her opponent is an hardcourter

-4

OlymPICKs III and half

The 'half' stands for the third part had to be posted yesterday: I made my picks and started writing my piece when something stopped me, I don't even remember what, and in the whole day I haven't got back on.

Here's yesterday's:

Richard Gasquet - Marcos Baghdatis: Bagh to win @3.32 1 unit

Marin Cilic - Lleyton Hewitt: Hewitt to win @3.75 1 unit

But let's go on.

Roger Federer - Denis Istomin: pick Istomin @21.00 1 unit

Yeah, it's the King facing Istomin, but even Istomin doesn't worth this. 

I don't like him, I've watched few match of him in Wimby, where he had a great run, passing through an on-fire Seppi, Andreev, Federer's nightmare Falla and losing at the R16 7-5 in the fifth against Youzhny wasting some match point.

He's nothing special in technique, apart from a decent serve, he is slow on movement and doesn't hit that hard from both side, but he play on safety, with the ball well above the net, not giving pace to his opponent, and I can neatly see the Fed make lots of unforced on these weightless balls.

John Isner - Janko Tipsarevic: pick Isner @2.25 2 units

Yet two days ago I was against Tipso, I'll try again, this time facing Isner.

Maybe it's true that the real grass-court now are only in Newport, while all the others are going nearer to all other surface, Wimbledon's groundsmen admit that bounce are higher nowadays.

But Isner is always very tricky , and above all when playing for US: some months ago he beated Federer on clay in Switzerland and reapated against France in Davis Cup. 

David Ferrer - Kei Nishikori: pick Nishikori @5.33 1 unit

Can someone stop Ferru? He's succesfully playing since Auckland in genuary. Well he do this every season, building his ranking upon lower tournament, but seeing him doing great results also on grass well... it's weird that's all.

The young US-nippon talent has played about the half of Ferrer's matches, and his style is not even that energy wasteful, he's not an hard hitter and his movements are very gently, like the bally-dancer Davydenko, who he defeated in the previous round.

This is going to be a long baseline marathon match and even though the spirit Ferrer puts in every match I think he's going to have more difficultes than the odds shows, he should try more variation than he's used to, in order to pass through this gum-wall that will hit back everything.

Steve Darcis - Nicolas Almagro: pick Darcis @3.54 1 unit

I know this is going insane but this will be the last one.

Next round the winner among the two of them will play Murray.

So even losing to Darcis will be ok, no?

Jo-Wilfried Tsonga - Feliciano Lopez: pick Lopez @3.37 2 units

Jo comes from a 25-23 in the third against Raonic, a 4 hours match.

I can imagine the rallies hadn't go beyond the 3 hits, but it's hard the same. 

Jo won't be 100% fit, and Feliciano can be thougn on grass: leftie, great service, sliced backhand and great experience.

My odds on Lopez won't have gone over @2.50

Sabine Lisicki - Maria Sharapova: pick Lisicki @3.95 2 units

Well close to 4.00... just couple of weeks ago it was a 6-4 6-3 win for Sabine.

Maybe she's not going to replicate but again I'd made much lower odds

Close to hit the target with Sabine, I reckon that Sharapova playing in the same way in every situation, her not suffering lowering of focus.
Great delusion by F.Lopez, Almagro hate me, Roger (I read) not playing well and also got a rain suspension, Ferru finally stopped by Nishi, good work by Isner in the tie-break. Saved my day.
+0,83