ATP Tokyo - Can anybody stop Djokovic?

Tennis Tours in Asia

The ATP circus moved over to Asia last week with tournaments held in Chengdu and Zhuhai, both China. This week, we have two ATP 500 events in capital cities, one in Beijing and one in Tokyo.

Everyone that follows my Twitter account @MatterTipTennis or is a premium member of mine probably noticed that last week was a huge one regarding the outrights. We were hitting Sabalenka in Wuhan, Carreno Busta in Chengdu and De Minaur in Zhuhai. Hitting three tournament winners in one week is something I never did before and will never achieve again. So please, don't treat this like a done deal. The odds are high for a reason. Anyway, I was diving into the tournament in Tokyo, Japan, and hope not everything I'm talking about is worthless this week.

World #1 the Overwhelming Favorite

The event in Japan's capital sees world #1 Novak Djokovic at the top of the draw. He's the betting favorite and for 1 dollar, you would only get 1.72 dollars in return if he was actually going to win it all. Even if he was 100% healthy, I wouldn't be comfortable betting him at that price in a tournament that's leading towards an ATP Masters event in Shanghai.

It will be his first tournament after he retired against Stan Wawrinka in his fourth round match at the US Open. He has never been to Tokyo before, at least not to play a tennis tournament. So even if Djokovic goes on and wins it this week, I won't regret missing out on him at 1.72 odds. His projected draw sees Jan-Lennard Struff in round two and #5 seed Lucas Pouille in the quarterfinal. Both of them have interesting new family situations as Struff became a dad in April and Pouille married three weeks ago.

While Struff is playing the best season of his career, his performance regressed a bit this summer. Pouille already competed in two tournaments post marriage, reaching the semifinal in Metz before losing his first round match in Zhuhai last week. The player I would look out for in Djokovic's quarter would be Hubert Hurkacz, but his losses against Chardy at the US Open and Barrere in Metz have not been an indicator of good form. As I don't trust Joao Sousa or Yoshihito Nishioka either, I will just pass on that quarter with the hope of someone beating Djokovic.

No Reliable Picks in the First Half

No trust is an appropriate term for outrights in the second quarter as well. It has Belgian David Goffin as the #3 seed and Croat Marin Cilic as the #6 seed. Although Goffin would be the most reasonable pick, his draw is not the easiest. His first round opponent, Pablo Carreno Busta, just won the 250 event in Chengdu and also beat him in Metz two weeks ago. While I wouldn't trust the Spaniard to go on yet another deep run, he's definitely capable of beating Goffin again. Denis Shapovalov is probably waiting in round two. However, he also lost to Carreno Busta last week.

The other eighth has Marin Cilic as the seed, but the Croat is still nowhere near his best after suffering a knee injury at the beginning of the season. Speaking of injuries, his potential second round opponent is Hyeon Chung. I would love to see both of them competing at their peak level again, but it seems like this will take a little longer. I will pass on the second quarter as well.

Wide Open Bottom Half

While the top half of the draw does look like an ATP 500, the names in the bottom half more read like a 250 level event. The third quarter with seeded players #7 Taylor Fritz and #4 Benoit Paire involves Opelka, Andujar, Simon, Albot, Krajinovic and Uchiyama. In the fourth quarter, #8 Alex de Minaur and #2 Borna Coric will compete against Harris, Millman, Mannarino, Thompson, Londero and Daniel.

Benoit Paire's motivation is always in doubt and I'm not a huge fan of picking him as an outright. He was showing up at a fast food restaurant after his second round exit in Chengdu and also complained about the jet lag. I'm not sure if he's 100% motivated in Asia. Alex de Minaur on the contrary is coming off a tournament win in Zhuhai. Even though I think he has the tools and fitness to go far in two consecutive weeks, I won't be betting him to win a second tournament in a row.

That leaves some room to attack. Usually, I'm tempted to go on bigger odds in these circumstances, but other than Radu Albot at 81, I didn't really like the numbers on the underdogs. I didn't end up betting Albot either and went for the two remaining seeds instead.

Outright Picks

Taylor Fritz really showed some improvement this year and even though he's on a bit of a losing streak, I'm taking him to bounce back after his first round loss to runner-up Alexander Bublik in Chengdu. The American has a 4-0 record against his first-round opponent, compatriot Reilly Opelka. On the faster Japanese courts, I also like him to beat either Pablo Andujar or Gilles Simon in round two. So I hope he won't be playing the new edition of FIFA too much and will go for a deep run on the tennis courts instead. The draw is lined up for him.

My second pick will be Borna Coric. The Croat faces Taro Daniel in the first round and either Jordan Thompson or Juan Ignacio Londero in the second round. After recovering from injury, he showed some form again in St. Petersburg, losing the final to Medvedev, and Zhuhai, where he lost to eventual champion Alex de Minaur. The two could face again in the quarterfinal here in Tokyo. A potential motivational angle is there for Coric, who also arrived at the venue a few days earlier. Adrian Mannarino is another option in the fourth quarter, but regarding his potential draw (Millman, De Minaur, Coric, Fritz, Djokovic), the odds of 34 have not been high enough for me.