Rafael Nadal skipped the Australian Open this year and is still No. 1 in the year-end points race thanks to his amazing season. Sure, there are a couple clay tournaments “inflating” that total, but he’s also won all three hard-court Masters tournaments he’s entered.
2013 U.S. Open Men’s Preview: Djokovic the favorite thanks to favorable draw
Rafael Nadal has dominated on the hard-court swing leading up to New York. Has he done enough to reach Novak Djokovic’s level? Tournament forecasts, draw analysis, and favorite bets below.
Pat Lovell-USA TODAY Sports
Meanwhile, Novak Djokovic hasn’t had a fraction of his hard-court success from the last two years despite winning the Australian Open. The biggest question looming ahead of their potential finals rematch this year: has Rafael Nadal done enough to warrant being a favorite to win the U.S. Open?
Of course, Nadal and Djokovic still have to make it to the finals in a draw that’s filled with good hard-court players. Roger Federer and Andy Murray overperform the most on hard courts, Tomas Berdych and Juan Martin del Potro can hold their own against the Big Four, and players like Milos Raonic and John Isner are surging at the right time. And that’s to say nothing of the unseeded landmines that can ruin any one of those players’ tournaments. The US Open looks pretty fun for analyzing this year. The Advanced Baseline-powered preview is below.
Year in Review: Tracking the Top Four
Below is a 52-week tracking graph of the hard-adjusted Advanced Baseline ranks of the Big Four from last year’s U.S. Open until now. It’s a quick way to see what’s changed at the top of the ladder, and how it might cause things to be different this year. (click to enlarge)
Djokovic reached his AB hard-court high mark last year after winning Shanghai, capping his near-inhuman 2011-12 run. Since then, his level of play has returned to earth (or at least “merely” very, very good), characterized by the fact that he hasn’t won a hard-court tournament in seven months.
Plenty of people are speculating Nadal has closed the gap this month with his wins in Montreal and Cincinnati and that they should be co-favorites. AB doesn’t quite agree, as shown by the sizable gap. It is easy to wonder if Nadal really has closed the gap and AB is slow picking up on it, but Nadal’s drop in July comes from his first-round loss at Wimbledon; if he had even made a quarterfinal run and held his level, the gap would be a lot smaller. But that upset loss is still there, and there’s no reason it shouldn’t be priced in.
I’m much more curious about how to interpret Federer’s trio of losses to sub-50 players in the past couple months. You might think they should result in a much bigger drop, but a) they were still close losses, and b) none of them occurred on hard surfaces, so they didn’t result in a surface-specific hit. Yes, his back will probably bother him just as much (if not more) on a hard surface than on clay and grass, but there’s no way to infer injury-related issues from the score lines alone. AB is still almost certainly overrating Federer like it was at Wimbledon, and it’s something I really want to figure out how to solve down the road.
Forecast and Draw Analysis
Generated from simulating the tournament 100,000 times before the tournament began, using win probabilities from AB ratings. Full explanation for calculating luck of the draw can be found here.
| Player | Round 2 | Round 3 | Round 4 | QF | SF | Finals | Winner | Expected Points | Change in Expected Points from Draw |
| Novak Djokovic | 96.7% | 94.1% | 89.2% | 86.0% | 71.8% | 54.0% | 36.7% | 1132.5 | 8.1 |
| Rafael Nadal | 96.3% | 93.9% | 89.1% | 77.6% | 52.4% | 45.7% | 24.4% | 909.0 | -95.2 |
| Andy Murray | 95.9% | 92.8% | 87.5% | 81.3% | 60.4% | 25.6% | 13.4% | 757.7 | 25.5 |
| Roger Federer | 95.4% | 90.3% | 82.5% | 71.7% | 36.4% | 30.5% | 13.9% | 676.0 | 4.8 |
| David Ferrer | 96.7% | 87.6% | 70.0% | 59.0% | 40.4% | 9.8% | 2.0% | 461.0 | 72.0 |
| Tomas Berdych | 95.6% | 91.2% | 80.8% | 60.9% | 26.6% | 7.7% | 2.7% | 421.1 | 19.4 |
| Juan Martin del Potro | 95.8% | 87.9% | 83.1% | 62.2% | 18.7% | 8.7% | 3.6% | 407.3 | -41.5 |
| Milos Raonic | 94.3% | 87.4% | 67.5% | 44.3% | 22.4% | 3.8% | 0.7% | 327.3 | 112.7 |
| Richard Gasquet | 87.9% | 80.1% | 56.0% | 29.2% | 13.4% | 2.2% | 0.3% | 240.7 | 32.6 |
| Tommy Haas | 91.0% | 78.0% | 62.0% | 26.3% | 5.9% | 1.8% | 0.5% | 214.1 | -42.3 |
| Kei Nishikori | 94.0% | 71.9% | 57.8% | 15.4% | 3.4% | 1.8% | 0.4% | 178.8 | -29.0 |
| John Isner | 96.0% | 63.2% | 50.2% | 12.1% | 4.3% | 2.8% | 0.6% | 172.7 | -78.6 |
| Janko Tipsarevic | 90.3% | 65.5% | 52.6% | 15.6% | 6.1% | 0.6% | 0.1% | 171.6 | 59.5 |
| Ernests Gulbis | 90.9% | 75.2% | 23.2% | 15.6% | 7.4% | 0.9% | 0.1% | 156.2 | 49.8 |
| Kevin Anderson | 89.8% | 70.8% | 39.5% | 13.2% | 3.4% | 0.5% | 0.1% | 147.5 | 0.9 |
| Dmitry Tursunov | 85.9% | 74.3% | 34.5% | 13.0% | 4.4% | 0.3% | 0.0% | 145.5 | 53.8 |
| Stanislas Wawrinka | 71.2% | 58.3% | 37.4% | 15.3% | 4.4% | 0.8% | 0.1% | 143.2 | -64.7 |
| Feliciano Lopez | 83.0% | 68.6% | 24.7% | 11.1% | 3.6% | 0.3% | 0.0% | 127.0 | 20.8 |
| Philipp Kohlschreiber | 99.4% | 87.3% | 25.1% | 3.5% | 0.7% | 0.3% | 0.0% | 117.0 | 6.1 |
| Nicolas Almagro | 60.0% | 49.1% | 37.0% | 6.5% | 1.6% | 0.2% | 0.0% | 104.3 | -3.6 |
| Sam Querrey | 89.7% | 75.6% | 12.6% | 5.9% | 0.8% | 0.3% | 0.0% | 101.4 | 3.3 |
| Gael Monfils | 95.8% | 36.3% | 23.8% | 4.1% | 1.0% | 0.4% | 0.1% | 94.6 | -16.9 |
| Julien Benneteau | 90.3% | 61.2% | 12.5% | 5.0% | 0.9% | 0.1% | 0.0% | 93.1 | 10.7 |
| Grigor Dimitrov | 89.6% | 65.0% | 7.0% | 5.0% | 1.2% | 0.3% | 0.1% | 92.1 | -4.4 |
| Marcel Granollers | 88.1% | 48.0% | 24.8% | 1.8% | 0.2% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 88.8 | 46.0 |
| Fabio Fognini | 84.0% | 46.5% | 23.9% | 1.7% | 0.2% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 85.6 | 17.0 |
| Jerzy Janowicz | 79.9% | 52.8% | 17.3% | 2.8% | 0.6% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 84.6 | 22.2 |
| Mikhail Youzhny | 81.6% | 49.1% | 16.1% | 3.5% | 0.4% | 0.1% | 0.0% | 83.5 | -19.1 |
| Benoit Paire | 61.3% | 45.3% | 27.0% | 2.2% | 0.4% | 0.1% | 0.0% | 81.5 | 1.1 |
| Dudi Sela | 79.0% | 28.8% | 19.4% | 3.6% | 0.9% | 0.1% | 0.0% | 78.1 | 30.3 |
| Nikolay Davydenko | 91.8% | 54.3% | 5.2% | 1.6% | 0.3% | 0.1% | 0.0% | 75.5 | 3.7 |
| Marinko Matosevic | 60.1% | 43.3% | 14.2% | 2.4% | 0.3% | 0.1% | 0.0% | 69.6 | 3.4 |
| Jurgen Melzer | 71.2% | 49.5% | 6.3% | 1.7% | 0.2% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 66.7 | 3.0 |
| Bernard Tomic | 78.3% | 23.7% | 13.9% | 2.1% | 0.2% | 0.1% | 0.0% | 65.4 | 0.3 |
| Alexandr Dolgopolov | 67.9% | 34.8% | 10.9% | 2.2% | 0.4% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 64.5 | 1.7 |
| Somdev Devvarman | 66.4% | 35.1% | 12.6% | 1.3% | 0.2% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 63.5 | 26.2 |
| Denis Istomin | 40.0% | 30.0% | 20.3% | 2.6% | 0.5% | 0.1% | 0.0% | 62.6 | 9.3 |
| Florian Mayer | 55.9% | 42.5% | 5.0% | 2.7% | 0.6% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 60.4 | 4.7 |
| Andreas Seppi | 57.8% | 32.8% | 12.5% | 1.2% | 0.1% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 59.0 | 0.1 |
| Tim Smyczek | 72.2% | 25.9% | 10.5% | 0.6% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 57.4 | 24.2 |
| Jarkko Nieminen | 79.1% | 29.2% | 2.1% | 1.2% | 0.1% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 55.3 | 7.2 |
| Yen-Hsun Lu | 76.3% | 16.5% | 7.0% | 1.1% | 0.2% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 53.1 | 1.9 |
| Lleyton Hewitt | 76.6% | 9.5% | 6.3% | 2.0% | 0.2% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 50.9 | -2.7 |
| Marcos Baghdatis | 64.1% | 19.0% | 5.9% | 1.3% | 0.2% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 49.3 | -0.3 |
| Roberto Bautista-Agut | 74.3% | 10.0% | 3.8% | 1.7% | 0.4% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 48.3 | 3.1 |
| Jack Sock | 57.4% | 25.1% | 5.4% | 0.6% | 0.1% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 47.7 | 18.1 |
| Alex Jr. Bogomolov | 38.7% | 24.2% | 11.8% | 0.9% | 0.1% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 46.9 | 6.8 |
| Jeremy Chardy | 60.2% | 24.2% | 3.3% | 0.7% | 0.1% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 46.5 | 3.9 |
| Mikhail Kukushkin | 71.0% | 17.9% | 2.1% | 0.7% | 0.1% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 46.5 | 11.9 |
| Bradley Klahn | 69.4% | 18.4% | 2.9% | 0.4% | 0.1% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 46.2 | 15.9 |
| Tommy Robredo | 39.9% | 26.4% | 7.6% | 0.8% | 0.1% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 44.7 | -36.0 |
| Juan Monaco | 44.1% | 29.9% | 2.8% | 1.3% | 0.2% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 44.6 | -16.1 |
| James Blake | 59.5% | 15.7% | 5.2% | 0.8% | 0.1% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 44.4 | -5.0 |
| Steve Johnson | 59.7% | 14.0% | 6.2% | 0.6% | 0.1% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 44.2 | 13.1 |
| Igor Sijsling | 57.3% | 22.9% | 1.8% | 0.3% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 42.7 | 11.6 |
| Donald Young | 60.7% | 18.9% | 1.6% | 0.6% | 0.1% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 42.6 | 10.5 |
| Stephane Robert | 72.2% | 10.4% | 2.3% | 0.1% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 42.2 | 16.6 |
| Guillaume Rufin | 63.7% | 13.5% | 2.7% | 0.4% | 0.1% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 41.7 | 13.5 |
| Ivan Dodig | 51.8% | 24.1% | 1.8% | 0.4% | 0.1% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 41.6 | -15.8 |
| Xavier Malisse | 42.2% | 20.3% | 6.0% | 0.6% | 0.1% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 40.5 | 8.6 |
| Radek Stepanek | 28.8% | 18.4% | 7.9% | 1.8% | 0.4% | 0.1% | 0.0% | 40.4 | -26.5 |
| Thiemo de Bakker | 64.4% | 7.4% | 2.4% | 0.5% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 39.1 | 9.6 |
| Fernando Verdasco | 48.2% | 20.4% | 1.9% | 0.4% | 0.1% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 38.9 | -31.8 |
| Vasek Pospisil | 74.4% | 3.2% | 0.9% | 0.2% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 38.6 | 0.6 |
| Frank Dancevic | 51.1% | 15.8% | 2.9% | 0.3% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 38.3 | 3.0 |
| Adrian Mannarino | 58.8% | 13.1% | 1.0% | 0.2% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 37.7 | 6.5 |
| Robin Haase | 48.9% | 14.5% | 2.4% | 0.2% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 36.1 | 1.3 |
| Carlos Berlocq | 59.3% | 4.8% | 1.8% | 0.5% | 0.1% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 35.6 | -9.7 |
| Edouard Roger-Vasselin | 60.2% | 8.7% | 0.5% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 35.5 | 9.3 |
| Philipp Petzschner | 42.6% | 15.4% | 2.7% | 0.2% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 34.9 | 9.8 |
| Jiri Vesely | 59.3% | 4.7% | 1.3% | 0.3% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 34.6 | 4.1 |
| Leonardo Mayer | 57.2% | 2.8% | 0.8% | 0.3% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 32.6 | 4.3 |
| Peter Gojowczyk | 42.7% | 14.1% | 0.8% | 0.2% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 32.4 | 5.7 |
| Benjamin Becker | 56.6% | 2.3% | 0.7% | 0.2% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 32.0 | 0.1 |
| Sergiy Stakhovsky | 39.9% | 13.1% | 1.0% | 0.2% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 31.1 | -3.6 |
| Tobias Kamke | 40.3% | 6.9% | 2.6% | 0.2% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 30.1 | 4.3 |
| Lukas Lacko | 33.6% | 11.8% | 2.9% | 0.2% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 30.0 | 3.8 |
| Ivo Karlovic | 40.5% | 7.6% | 2.0% | 0.3% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 29.9 | -8.7 |
| David Goffin | 32.1% | 11.2% | 2.1% | 0.2% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 28.7 | -11.4 |
| Martin Klizan | 39.3% | 8.7% | 0.5% | 0.2% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 28.4 | 2.6 |
| Horacio Zeballos | 41.2% | 7.5% | 0.4% | 0.1% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 28.4 | 1.9 |
| Go Soeda | 35.9% | 7.2% | 1.6% | 0.2% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 27.5 | -6.8 |
| Evgeny Donskoy | 28.8% | 13.5% | 0.7% | 0.1% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 26.8 | -0.8 |
| Santiago Giraldo | 40.7% | 2.9% | 0.9% | 0.2% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 26.8 | -10.6 |
| Victor Hanescu | 42.8% | 1.8% | 0.5% | 0.1% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 26.5 | 2.1 |
| Lukas Rosol | 43.4% | 1.6% | 0.2% | 0.1% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 26.2 | -0.7 |
| Albert Montanes | 39.8% | 4.0% | 0.2% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 25.9 | 4.5 |
| Denis Kudla | 40.7% | 2.0% | 0.5% | 0.1% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 25.7 | 0.9 |
| Jan-Lennard Struff | 36.3% | 4.9% | 0.8% | 0.1% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 25.7 | 4.0 |
| Pablo Andujar | 35.6% | 2.6% | 0.5% | 0.1% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 24.2 | 2.0 |
| Kenny de Schepper | 30.6% | 4.9% | 0.5% | 0.1% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 23.5 | 2.2 |
| James Duckworth | 27.8% | 4.6% | 1.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 22.7 | 2.5 |
| Andrej Martin | 29.0% | 4.0% | 0.3% | 0.1% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 22.4 | 0.4 |
| Albano Olivetti | 27.9% | 2.1% | 0.2% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 21.0 | 3.9 |
| Maximo Gonzalez | 20.2% | 6.7% | 0.7% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 20.7 | 0.9 |
| Florent Serra | 17.0% | 8.0% | 1.0% | 0.2% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 20.7 | -6.0 |
| Michael Russell | 12.1% | 7.4% | 2.1% | 0.3% | 0.1% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 20.2 | -9.0 |
| Thomaz Bellucci | 25.7% | 1.6% | 0.3% | 0.1% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 20.2 | -5.1 |
| Aljaz Bedene | 14.1% | 7.4% | 1.5% | 0.2% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 20.0 | -6.9 |
| Albert Ramos-Vinolas | 21.7% | 3.1% | 0.8% | 0.1% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 19.9 | -11.2 |
| Daniel Gimeno-Traver | 23.7% | 2.3% | 0.4% | 0.1% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 19.8 | -5.6 |
| Alex Kuznetsov | 21.1% | 3.2% | 1.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 19.8 | -3.5 |
| Nicolas Mahut | 18.4% | 5.0% | 0.7% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 19.3 | -9.2 |
| Rogerio Dutra da Silva | 25.6% | 0.5% | 0.1% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 19.3 | -3.0 |
| Brian Baker | 23.4% | 1.2% | 0.5% | 0.1% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 19.2 | -7.4 |
| Lukasz Kubot | 20.9% | 3.1% | 0.2% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 18.9 | -4.4 |
| Rajeev Ram | 16.0% | 3.8% | 0.8% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 18.1 | -1.2 |
| Paul-Henri Mathieu | 9.0% | 3.3% | 0.8% | 0.1% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 15.6 | -15.9 |
| Pablo Cuevas | 9.7% | 2.6% | 0.9% | 0.1% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 15.5 | -6.8 |
| Guido Pella | 10.3% | 3.9% | 0.1% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 15.5 | -6.8 |
| Daniel Brands | 10.2% | 3.1% | 0.5% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 15.4 | -12.2 |
| Jurgen Zopp | 11.9% | 1.7% | 0.3% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 15.2 | -1.4 |
| Joao Sousa | 10.4% | 2.6% | 0.1% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 15.0 | -8.4 |
| Andreas Haider-Maurer | 9.1% | 2.8% | 0.2% | 0.1% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 14.7 | -6.0 |
| Michael Llodra | 4.1% | 2.6% | 1.2% | 0.4% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 14.5 | -19.6 |
| Michal Przysiezny | 9.7% | 1.5% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 14.1 | -4.0 |
| Thomas Fabbiano | 5.7% | 2.6% | 0.6% | 0.1% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 13.8 | -9.9 |
| Ryan Harrison | 3.8% | 2.4% | 1.0% | 0.2% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 13.7 | -34.7 |
| Rhyne Williams | 8.2% | 1.2% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 13.4 | -6.1 |
| Grega Zemlja | 4.6% | 2.0% | 0.6% | 0.1% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 13.4 | -23.2 |
| Paolo Lorenzi | 4.4% | 2.1% | 0.6% | 0.1% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 13.2 | -14.1 |
| Richard Berankis | 3.3% | 2.0% | 0.6% | 0.2% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 13.1 | -27.2 |
| Daniel Evans | 6.0% | 1.3% | 0.3% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 13.0 | -10.9 |
| Guillermo Garcia-Lopez | 4.2% | 1.5% | 0.7% | 0.1% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 12.9 | -17.9 |
| Nick Kyrgios | 3.3% | 0.8% | 0.2% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 11.7 | -9.3 |
| Filippo Volandri | 4.0% | 0.4% | 0.1% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 11.6 | -10.8 |
| Adrian Ungur | 4.2% | 0.2% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 11.6 | -6.6 |
| Collin Altamirano | 0.6% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 10.2 | -0.3 |
Contenders
Federer and Murray have sections loaded with clay-court specialists, which should make their early rounds much easier. Meanwhile, I don’t think Nadal could’ve gotten a worse draw, which is confirmed by his having the worst change in expected points. He probably won’t face a player outside the hard-court top 50 at any point and has a potential top-10 hard-courter in John Isner in only the 4th round. As Nadal himself can probably remind you from Wimbledon this year, those early round upsets really can happen. The biggest zero-sum gainer from Nadal’s unlucky draw is Milos Raonic, who is not only playing well at the right time, but got the most favorable draw in the tournament for a semifinal run, landing in the weak third quarter.
Lower seeds to watch:
- Ernests Gulbis: He's been an AB top 25 player since about May, but his Slam draws haven't cooperated. Getting placed in the third quarter gives him his best opportunity yet.
- Dmitry Tursunov: If there were one fewer injury withdrawal, he would've been hands down the most dangerous unseeded player in the field. Instead, he managed to just barely get a seed. Quietly racking up deep runs in the American hard-court swing this year, he's yet another name capable of coming out of the weak third quarter.
Unseeded dark horses:
- Gael Monfils: His level of play is close to where he was before taking off time from injury, so once he puts in enough volume he should be in the ATP top 30 in short order. If he can get past Isner in the 2nd, there's no reason he can't make it to a 4th rounder with Nadal.
- Marcel Granollers: He couldn't have asked for a better draw with Jurgen Zopp in the first (197th in AB hard-court) and clay-specialist Fabio Fognini in the second.
- Marinko Matosevic: He received an average draw, but his ATP ranking disguises how well he does on hard-courts. I'm tabbing him as the early favorite to make a home-country run at next year's Australian Open, and he should have ample room to show why this week.
- Qualifier to watch: Somdev Devvarman. He got the best draw of all the qualifiers, and has had moderate hard-court success on the Challenger circuit this year.
Cheat Sheet for American Players
A quick and dirty guide to the American players in the field, and which dark horses to pick to make you look smarter than everyone else.
- John Isner: Had a roller coaster August. He bore the brunt of the blame for no American men being in the ATP top 20 after a first-round loss in Montreal, then promptly beat Richard Gasquet, Djokovic, and del Potro en route to a finals run in Cincinnati. His surge has put him all the way to 9th in the AB hard-court rankings. Normally I'd say he's in strong contention for a storybook quarterfinals run, but he landed a round two matchup with the most dangerous unseeded player in Gael Monfils and scored the second-most unlucky draw in the tournament.
- Sam Querrey: He's fallen off a cliff in the last couple months, dropping to 35th overall and 29th in hard-court ratings. He's not at Isner's level like he was six months ago, so he's probably not that great an alternative pick for the American most likely to have a run.
- Ryan Harrison: Harrison's way better on hard courts, I swear! Unfortunately, it probably won't matter because Harrison drew Nadal in the opening round. He continues to do a great Tracy McGrady impersonation, doomed to never get out of the early rounds. This curse can't last forever, can it?
- James Blake: A first-round win over Jerzy Janowicz in Cincinnati shows he's still got plenty left in the tank for the few tournaments he does play. Hands down the sentimental favorite, but he didn't get any great breaks in the draw outside the first round qualifier.
- Tim Smyczek: He has the highest AB ranking of the Americans on the Challenger circuit and a super-soft potential third-round matchup if he can get past sub-100 James Duckworth and a winnable match against either Benoit Paire or Alex Bogomolov (who does have a recent history of irrationally retiring against Americans, so who knows). After Isner and Querrey, he has the greatest chance of making a run.
- Bradley Klahn: He won a Challenger tournament in California last month, but his margins of victory weren't enough to significantly boost his rating past Smyczek. His second-round matchup is still tough enough that he probably won't make a run.
- Jack Sock: Sock arguably had the best U.S. Open run of all the American prospects last year and got a pretty favorable draw to make another one. AB doesn't rate him as high as Smyczek or Klahn, but he got a pretty soft draw with a first-round qualifier and a second-rounder with Janowicz, who's not that good on hard courts yet.
- Steve Johnson: Johnson was looking like a much better dark horse before losing to Mackenzie Macdonald, who was playing his first tour-level event ever, in qualifying. Probably won't make it past Nicolas Almagro.
- Brian Baker: AB has done a decent job of tracking his injury-related decline, and it's clear he's not at the same level he found during his 2012 Wimbledon run. Drawing Lleyton Hewitt first and del Potro second probably means he won't make any noise.
Favorite Bets
Favorite first-round bets:
- Marinko Matosevic (+160) over Tommy Robredo
- Tim Smyczek (-155) over James Duckworth
- Donald Young (+102) over Martin Klizan
- Xavier Malisse (+190) over Andreas Seppi
- Ivan Dodig (+170) over Fernando Verdasco
Favorite futures:
- Kei Nishikori to win outright (1000-1)
- Tommy Haas to win outright (525-1)
- Dmitry Tursunov to win quarter (80-1)
Final Thoughts
I wasn’t really sold on the co-favorite talk before the draw got released, and the only way Nadal’s path to the finals could’ve been harder is if Murray switched places with Ferrer.
It’s easy to get caught up on Nadal’s recent results and decide he’s turned a corner, but even a cursory glance at Djokovic’s two-year run of hard-court dominance is a reminder of how big an obstacle that is to overcome. Maybe if Djokovic had Nadal’s draw I’d be more willing to sign off on the co-favorite idea, but the rankings tracker and the draw analysis all point to Djokovic remaining the rightful favorite to win this year’s 2013 U.S. Open.
See More:
