ATP Masters in Montreal, 1st Round, Tuesday, 09.08.2022
The Canada Masters, this year it greets you again from Montreal! It’s not long now until the world’s best tennis players embark on their journey to the US Open, but first they’re making a detour to neighbouring Canada.
Favourites abound, one of them hitting double in Washington a few days ago. So it’s no surprise that Bwin has a clear favourite despite two players on equal footing in the rankings. In my Baez Kyrgios tip, I reveal why I’ll be betting on the Australian too!
The world class is visiting Montreal, and with everything it has to offer at the moment! For the Canada Masters, there are two top favourites in Daniil Medvedev and Carlos Alcaraz. Right after this duo comes someone who was still on the road beyond the top 100 a year ago.
A certain Nick Kyrgios seems to have finally managed to get a grip on his emotions at the age of 27 and to finally concentrate on top-level sport! And so it happens that he leaves the following players behind him in Montreal:
Jannik Sinner, Matteo Berrettini, Stefanos Tsitsipas and Taylor Fritz! This prominent quartet is less likely to win the title than Kyrgios – and there are good reasons for that. The first reason is that the Australian reached the final at Wimbledon, losing 3-1 to Novak Djokovic with a good performance.
A little later in Atlanta, he skipped the singles due to a minor injury, but picked up the title in the doubles with Thanasi Kokkinakis. In Washington, he shouldered the doubles burden again, and how!
Together with Kokkinakis, he again celebrated the number one trophy, but this time he also stood on top alone. And not somehow, but like in a frenzy with only one set lost!
Where has he gone, Nick Kyrgios, playing erratically, dropping sets and conspicuous by listlessness? He beat Marcos Giron, Tommy Paul, Reilly Opelka, Mikael Ymer and Yoshihito Nishioka straight up, only coming up short against Frances Tiafoe 6-7, 7-6, 6-2.
Kyrgios continues to rise in the rankings and has now climbed to 37th place. Three times in a row he was eliminated in the first round of the Canada Masters, but that should not happen to him this time.
The draw for the 1st round resulted in a tricky constellation, at least if we go by the world rankings. Sebastian Baez is currently ranked 32nd, five places ahead of Kyrgios.
Kyrgios also gave his opponent no chance in the first round, winning 6-4, 6-0. Sebastian Baez, who is very short at 1.70 metres, should know what kind of machine is waiting for him on Tuesday.
Typical for the Argentinean: it is the clay that suits him. On his favourite surface in Bastaad, right after Wimbledon, he played big, beat Fabio Fognini, Andrey Rublev and Alejandro Davidovich-Fokina, among others, and stormed into the final.
There, however, he was beaten in two sets by Francisco Cerundolo. After that, things went downhill, and drastically so. Hamburg, Umag and Washington, three times in a row he failed right at the beginning.
He doesn’t like the fast hard court very much, the 21-year-old now has to somehow compensate for the fact that Kyrgios is a head taller than him. It will be his first Canada Masters, so he doesn’t want to say goodbye in the first round.
My Baez Kyrgios Tip
Nick Kyrgios has been in very strong form for months now, but now the performances have really taken off. A doubles win in Washington, only one lost set – has he ever been as strong as he is these weeks?
In Montreal he is one of the big favourites, I can also very well imagine that he will annoy the best. Sebastian Baez is not one of them, the little Argentinean was recently eliminated three times in a row. So my only betting recommendation is this:
Kyrgios beats Baez straight up
