The final Grand Slam of the season gets underway Monday as the first round of the US Open begins, and as the day wears on, there should be a pair of underdogs that deliver some thrilling matches.
Here are my expert US Open betting picks for Hijikata – Davidovich Fokina and Rune – Nakashima.
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Expert US Open Betting Picks
Rinky Hijikata (+225) vs Alejandro Davidovich Fokina (-300)
2:30 p.m. ET
I continue to be shocked by Hijikata's losing record this season. He's clearly struggled as he's played his first full year on the main ATP level and run into some incredibly strong opponents, but in a handful of flat matches he's played excellent tennis to push some big talents into precarious positions.
I think the Australian has built off his breakthrough 2023 campaign rather well, and we can't forget that he had the week of his life here on these grounds year a year ago, when he powered into the fourth round of the US Open before playing a relatively tight match against Frances Tiafoe.
Hijikata will draw a pretty friendly matchup in the first round, all things considered, when he faces Alejandro Davidovich Fokina. The Spaniard owns just an 11-9 record on hardcourts this year and is 45-40 in the past four years. He's been rather disappointing around a few good weeks each season, and while he's played well at this tournament historically, his wins have rarely been easy.
I like Hijikata — who is beloved by the patrons at the US Open as a former college player at UNC — to once again play well on familiar American hardcourts and put on a show as this match likely wears into a fifth set.
Pick: Hijikata +5.5 Games (-125 via DraftKings)
Holger Rune (-215) vs. Brandon Nakashima (+160)
5 p.m. ET
It's not often you can claim a 2-0 record against a man who was just recently bumped out of the top 10, but that's the case here for Brandon Nakashima. He wiped the floor with Holger Rune in Shanghai last year and won rather easily at the 2021 Next Gen ATP Finals. That's not a predictor of future success, but is another feather in his cap.
Now comes the hard part — taking Rune out in a best-of-five setting. Nakashima seems more than capable of doing so, playing the best tennis of his young career this summer with a run through qualifying in Montreal that jettisoned him past Denis Shapovalov and Tommy Paul to the Round of 16. He's only lost twice in his past eight matches, and both times he was undone by an elite talent in Andrey Rublev.
Now, Rune has normally sat in the same sort of tier as Rublev, but prior to his semifinal appearance in Cincinnati, we'd hardly seen his best tennis this season. He was a mess through the second and third round of Wimbledon before being picked apart by Djokovic, and he's now undergone a change in his coaching team. On top of that, we've still yet to see him excel at a Grand Slam held on an outdoor hardcourt. Additionally, he's been bounced in the first round here twice in three trips with his 2022 third round appearance coming as the result of a second-round retirement.
Nakashima last played this well in 2022, and in that US Open, he took out Sebastian Korda and Grigor Dimitrov before taking a set off Jannik Sinner in a third-round loss. He's been lighting it up on hardcourts this year with an 18-8 record across all levels. That rivals Rune's 17-7 record and, in his career, the Dane is just 47-38 on the surface.
This is going to be tough for Nakashima, but he seems to finally be delivering on all the potential we saw as a teenager years ago. I think he's ready for his breakthrough this week.
Pick: Nakashima Moneyline (+160)
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