Bet sheet archive · 05 September 2026
05 September 2026: 10 bets staked, settled 5W-5L. Every entry below was published before its match started.
Fritz should win this and win it fairly comfortably, so we are not backing the upset. The question is the size of the beating, and the line has been set at seven games. Cerundolo returns serve at roughly tour average on hard courts and converts the break points he earns, so Fritz is unlikely to run away with a set-by-set rout, and every hard-court loss Cerundolo has taken this summer finished within six games. We are taking Cerundolo with a 6.5 game head start at 2.22.
F. Cerundolo won 3 - 2
We are backing Anna Kalinskaya on the games handicap rather than to win outright: she starts with a four and a half game cushion at 1.84 on the exchange. Kalinskaya has rarely been run off court by the top players this summer, losing by only five and six games to Pegula and Shnaider, and she beat Svitolina in their most recent hard-court meeting in Doha. Our margin model reads this as a closer match than the handicap implies, though the sharp bookmakers disagree enough that we are keeping the stake small.
A. Kalinskaya won 2 - 1
Zheng has ground her way through five matches at this event since qualifying, every one of them going to a deciding set, while Keys needed 35 games and had to save five match points against the world number 73 in the last round. Both women hold serve well above the tour average on hard, which is the profile that keeps scorelines tight and pushes sets into tiebreaks. Keys is still the more likely winner, but a comfortable three-game cushion for her looks generously priced. The bet is Zheng with a 2.5-game head start at 1.93.
Q. Zheng won 2 - 1
Cobolli survived two long, ugly rounds in New York, over ten hours on court including a comeback from two sets down, and the market has priced this third round as a coin flip against the rising Alexander Blockx. That reading leans heavily on how tired Cobolli looks, but a rough opening week is his documented pattern this season and he has tended to go deep once he clears it. Behind the noise he is the higher-rated player on a bigger record, he has beaten better opposition over the last three months, and he beat Blockx on a hard court in Cincinnati three weeks ago. We take Cobolli at even money.
A. Blockx won 3 - 1
Darderi arrives as a heavy favourite on the strength of a rating built mostly on clay: nearly three quarters of his rated matches are clay matches, and his hard-court level is a long way below his overall number. Sweeny is the opposite, a hard-court specialist with a large book on the surface, and he is two rounds into the tournament having spent barely half as long on court as Darderi did in a four-set third-round grind. That combination makes the Australian a better price than his ranking suggests, and Pinnacle's 4.14 is well clear of what we need. The obvious caution is that much of Sweeny's hard-court record was earned at smaller events, which is why this is a moderate stake rather than a big one.
L. Darderi won 3 - 0
Benjamin Bonzi is a big price here for a player the ratings see as level with Karen Khachanov. Their two-year hard court serve and return numbers are almost identical, and Bonzi arrives on a genuine upswing after a Winston-Salem semi-final and a straight-sets win over Ignacio Buse, while Khachanov spent July and August losing matches he was favoured to win. Best of five and Khachanov's Grand Slam record are real reasons he should be favoured, just not this heavily. We take Bonzi on the money line at the Betfair price.
K. Khachanov won 3 - 0
Coco Gauff should win this one, and the bet is not against that. The market has priced a straight-sets rout, roughly a 6-2 6-3, but Gauff has needed 19 and 23 games to get through her first two matches in New York, including a tiebreak against Paula Badosa. Cristina Bucsa is a grinder whose recent matches have run long and whose low-pace, disruptive game is the sort that denies Gauff rhythm. Taking Bucsa with a six-and-a-half game start gives us the whole range of normal Gauff wins.
C. Gauff won 2 - 0
Gea is the better hard-court player of these two on every surface-specific measure: a higher hard-court rating on a bigger sample, a clear return edge over the last two years, and two wins over Zheng on hard already this year. His overall rating is held down by a long record on clay, which is why the market has him as a clear underdog. Zheng is the fresher man after a much lighter route through the draw, and that is worth something in a five-setter, so we are taking the 2.5-game cushion rather than the outright.
A. Gea won 3 - 2
Mertens comes in on the back of a Monterrey final and two straight-forward US Open wins, and the market has her as a clear outsider. Our ratings make the gap to Osaka smaller than the price suggests, and Osaka has needed three sets and two tiebreaks to get through her first two rounds. The handicap was the better-looking option on first pass, but a closer look at how WTA hard-court matches actually finish showed the line was priced correctly, so we are taking the outright at 3.80. The main worry is that Osaka beat her 6-1 6-2 on the same surface only a month ago.
N. Osaka won 2 - 1
Eala arrives in far better shape than the price suggests. Inside the last five weeks she has beaten Svitolina, Osaka and Pegula on hard courts and has dropped only nine games across her first two rounds here, while Jovic has ground out both of her matches and lost three times as favourite over the summer. The market leans on Jovic's higher ranking and her 2-0 record in the series, but both of those wins came on clay and grass, and clay is comfortably Eala's weakest surface while hard is her strongest. On a quick New York court we make Eala the slight favourite rather than the underdog, and we are taking the value at Pinnacle.
I. Jovic won 2 - 1
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