{"id":509,"date":"2011-08-27T16:33:16","date_gmt":"2011-08-27T20:33:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/heavytopspin.com\/?p=509"},"modified":"2011-08-27T16:33:16","modified_gmt":"2011-08-27T20:33:16","slug":"us-open-mens-draw-predictions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/2011\/08\/27\/us-open-mens-draw-predictions\/","title":{"rendered":"US Open Men’s Draw Predictions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Get ready for a shock: I’m forecasting<\/a> Novak Djokovic as the winner of this year’s U.S. Open. \u00a0I give Djokovic a 27.8% chance of winning the tournament–a higher probability than I gave him<\/a> at Wimbledon.<\/p>\n

There’s a marked difference between Novak and the rest of the pack, in part because Juan Martin del Potro could wreak havoc with the bottom half of the draw. \u00a0I give Rafael Nadal a 14.6% chance, Andy Murray 9.2%, and Delpo 6.6%.<\/p>\n

Federer comes in fourth behind Murray, at 8.9%. \u00a0Making his road tricky is a likely quarterfinal matchup with either Jo-Wilfried Tsonga or Mardy Fish. \u00a0Fish does better in my hard-court rankings<\/a> than on the ATP computer, and is sixth-most likely to win the tournament at 4.2%. \u00a0Tsonga comes in 7th at 3.8%, as he shines on hard courts. \u00a0Also, my algorithm takes into account Tsonga’s wins over Fed.<\/p>\n

Seeded Americans Andy Roddick and John Isner do better than their rankings would suggest, in large part due to their hard-court prowess. \u00a0Roddick has a 2.1% chance, and Isner 0.2%. \u00a0The overall chance that an American wins the event is 6.6%–just a tick above the combined probability of Fish or Roddick winning, and equal to Delpo’s shot.<\/p>\n

The unseeded player my system favors is Nikolay Davydenko, at 0.7%. \u00a0Recent disasters aside, he is one of the few players who has proven he can beat the best players in the game. \u00a0As I recently wrote, his inconsistency may actually be a good thing<\/a>.<\/p>\n

There are several first-rounders that figure to be extremely tight matches. \u00a0Here are all the opening matchups where the favorite (in bold<\/strong>) has less than a 55% chance of getting through to the second round:<\/p>\n