The third round of the US Open will begin from the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center on Friday, and to start things off on the men's side we'll be treated to an appetizing rematch of last year's All-American quarterfinal between Ben Shelton and Frances Tiafoe. I'm not confident we'll see the same result, however, and it could kick off a string of upsets.
Here are my US Open tennis picks for Shelton vs Tiafoe and Rublev vs Lehecka.
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US Open Schedule, US Open Tennis Picks
Ben Shelton (-165) vs Frances Tiafoe (+125)
1:30 p.m. ET
I don't know if you chalk it up to nerves, or perhaps return position, but in two matches against Frances Tiafoe in his career Ben Shelton has landed around 60% of his first serves. While he's yet to drop a match to his fellow countryman, he was fortunate to escape last year's quarterfinal in four sets and did do battle with Tiafoe earlier this year on clay, where Tiafoe's been decidedly worse.
For a guy who leans on his massive serve, and lands almost 68% of them in, that's a big deal. It's also why Tiafoe had his chances to get back into last year's quarterfinal, fumbling away a break lead in a pivotal third set and breaking a total of three times before dropping a set point on a rather lucky slap-shot return winner in an ultimately decisive tiebreak.
At that period in time, Tiafoe was playing some of his worst tennis. He came into the US Open rather relaxed after achieving a career-high ranking and failed to take note of the warning signs present in his third and fourth round matches. Even then, he had his opportunities, but without his best level he was unable to capitalize.
The script seems flipped this year with Shelton having a somewhat down year despite an acceptable record, playing some shaky matches in the last two months and noticeably struggling on return.
Tiafoe's first serve is an underrated one, and perhaps if he were worse from the back of the court we would pay more attention to its massive pop. I don't think we've seen anything over the last few weeks to indicate that Shelton can return a serve like that with consistency and I think Tiafoe's been the one playing with more hunger as he looks to defend ranking points here and finally get one over on the American No. 1.
I expect a brilliant match out of Tiafoe here after a great summer on hard courts which has seen him make the semifinals of the Citi Open and the final of a Masters 1000 in Cincinnati.
Pick: Tiafoe ML (+125 via DraftKings)
Andrey Rublev (-330) vs Jiri Lehecka (+260)
2 p.m. ET
It feels strange to say Andrey Rublev's had a troubled season, considering he remains inside the world's top 10 and just made the final of Montreal a couple of weeks back, but he's simply not winning as many matches as he has over the last few years.
At just 38-17, Rublev's been bounced early in several tournaments in shocking fashion, and he'll have his work cut out if he wants to reach 53 match wins — a number he's had in all but one of the last five seasons, which was due to the abbreviated schedule in 2020.
Wednesday's win over Arthur Rinderknech really illustrated just how shaky the ground on which Rublev stands truly is. He faced a ridiculous 19 break points through the first two sets, dropping serve five times, and once he was able to save some break chances in the third set his opponent finally succumbed to fatigue.
Jiri Lehecka may ultimately begin to feel it in the legs after pulling himself out of a 2-0 hole against Mitchell Krueger in the second round, but one thing we do know is that he'll hang on to his serve. He was broken just once in the final three sets of that match after settling in, and despite an off day with just 54% first serves landing in he still managed to win 65% of points on serve.
I suspect Rublev will continue to donate breaks here with some massive issues behind his second serve, and with the way Lehecka serves I think that will keep him in front for a few sets and could even mean a lopsided set score.
It's always difficult to decide between the total and the game spread, but I could envision a scenario where Lehecka comes out and takes it to Rublev in a quick match whereas I'm less concerned about the Czech fading away and bringing about some game-spread heartbreak late.
Pick: Lehecka +5.5 games (-125)
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