The second round of the US Open rolls on Thursday, and to begin the day we'll watch two in-form players do battle with some of the peskiest opponents on tour. One of them should have a fair chance to win, but I'll be looking past the other.
Here are my US Open tennis picks for Machac vs Korda and Thompson vs Hurkacz.
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US Open Tennis Picks
Tomas Machac (+225) vs Sebastian Korda (-300)
11 a.m. ET
It's hard to put into words how well Sebastian Korda is playing at the moment.
The American built off a strong grass season to win the Citi Open earlier this month before reaching the semifinals in Montreal. A massive serve was what ultimately got him there, and it appears he's added some zip to his forehand by taking the ball a bit earlier as well.
Korda's still forming at 24 years of age, and with the improvements he's made to the weaker aspects of his game I think he's ready to make a deep run here at the US Open. He was incredibly impressive in the first round when he took a big punch from Corentin Moutet in the first set only to come back and win the set and the match in short order.
Machac, meanwhile, has lost the magic he had in his racquet at the end of the 2023 season into the beginning of 2024. His win over the corpse of Fabio Fognini was just his first first in four matches and he's now stumbled to a 3-8 record across his last 11 matches.
His game from the back of the court has deserted him, and with the way Korda's serving he shouldn't be afforded much room for error here. I expect a neat-and-tidy win for the American.
Pick: Korda -5.5 games (-110 via DraftKings)
Jordan Thompson (+175) vs Hubert Hurkacz (-215)
11 a.m. ET
It seems as if I say this every single time we cover a Grand Slam, but for a top-10 player, Hubert Hurkacz has to be one of the very worst players in the four biggest tournaments of the year.
Hurkacz, who's resided in the top 10 for much of the last few years, has been to the US Open six times. Would you like to guess what his best result was? It was reaching the second round in five of those six. That's right — Hurkacz has never made it out of the second round here. In fact, he's made the fourth round or better in just three Grand Slam events in his career.
Whatever the reason, he seems to start slow here and it wasn't until he survived a few rounds in Australia that he decided to play his best tennis. He's now battling a lower body injury and after sneaking by in the first round will have to deal with a pest in Jordan Thompson who's having a career revitalization this season and has gone 20-10 on hard courts.
I expect the return of Thompson to remain strong, considering he's had a long history of battling serve-dominant players quite well. I don't expect much from the baseline on Hurkacz's end, meanwhile. He's live for an upset.
Pick: Thompson ML (+175)
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