There have already been a number of surprise results at the Shanghai Masters and you could add Nicolas Jarry's win over Marin Cilic to that list in the first few days at this tournament.
The defeat for Cilic could be a critical one with a number of players lining up behind the out of form Croatian in the Race to London and Cilic's place in the top eight could be under serious threat by the end of this week.
One player who avoided any upset was Novak Djokovic who comfortably made it through to the Third Round as he continues his bid to finish the 2018 season with the World Number 1 position.
On Wednesday the rest of the Second Round is going to be completed which means the likes of Juan Martin Del Potro and Roger Federer are in action. There is a lot of Tennis to get through and it looks to be a busy day for my Tennis Picks too which both came through as winners on Tuesday with the third pick not counting as Monica Puig pulled out with an injury.
The ATP World Tour Finals are still a few weeks away compared with the WTA Finals which are played later this month. That means every tournament is now very valuable to those players chasing down a spot in Singapore and more of those players will be in action in Second Round matches across the various tournaments being played on the WTA Tour.
Both the Race to London and Race to Singapore have some miles to be run in the final few weeks of the 2018 season and the picture may get a little clearer by the end of the events this week.
On Wednesday I do think the favourites are going to have the chance to put a number of relatively strong wins on the board so it is no surprise I have picked a number of them that have fallen into my criteria.
I am looking to build on Tuesday and make sure the 2018 season ends with a flourish to secure a winning margin for the season.
Wednesday will likely be a key day to this week with the number of Picks I am taking on after a slow first couple of days at the tournaments.
I will analyse four of the Tennis Picks and add the remainder to the 'MY PICKS' section at the end of the thread.
Alexander Zverev - 3.5 games v Nikoloz Basilashvili: It says something for Alexander Zverev that he looks likely to miss playing in Milan in the Next Gen ATP Finals for a second season in a row because he has earned enough points to make the main ATP World Tour Finals. Once again it should underline how young Zverev is when what looks a sure fire Grand Slam Champion in the making is criticised for not having made a big impact in enough Slams despite his World Ranking.
The German will be the first to admit he would have expected to have done better at the Grand Slam level, but he is still learning and Zverev is only going to get better. He still has some work to do to make sure he is playing in London in the ATP World Tour Finals, but it would take some run of losses and his rivals playing some immense tennis to prevent that happening.
With Marin Cilic and Dominic Thiem already out of the Shanghai Masters this week feels a good chance for Zverev to confirm his place in London alongside Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Juan Martin Del Potro. A couple of wins in Shanghai should be enough although there is no guarantee he will get those with a tough Second Round match to negotiate.
Nikoloz Basilashvili had not shown a lot of appetite for playing on the hard courts before reaching the Fourth Round in the US Open. That has clearly sparked something as Basilashvili has enjoyed the Asian hard court swing so far having won the title in Beijing on Sunday and then moving to Shanghai and dismissing Denis Shapovalov very, very comfortably.
Confidence can be huge for any tennis player and Basilashvili is playing with plenty of that. However you can't dismiss the fact the numbers have been fairly average over the last two months even if they are significantly stronger than what the Georgian has tended to produce on the hard courts.
He is serving better in the last two months than he has for most of the season on the hard courts, but he will be tested by Zverev who is a strong returner and perhaps been a little unfortunate to have had a couple of early losses over the last few weeks. The younger player has the bigger serve in the match and still continues to hold at a higher rate than Basilashvili while you can't ignore the amount of tennis the Beijing Champion has played over the last ten days.
The win over Juan Martin Del Potro to take home the Beijing title is a huge one for Basilashvili and deserves a lot of respect. It should also focus Zverev who has suffered some really poor losses on the hard courts since winning the Washington title in August. He will need to serve better than he did in the loss to Malek Jaziri last week in Beijing, but Zverev should have more in the tank than Basilashvili and perhaps just cool down the hot shooting of the Georgian in this Second Round match and lead to a win and a cover.
Juan Martin Del Potro - 3.5 games v Richard Gasquet: It has been five years since Richard Gasquet and Juan Martin Del Potro have played one another so perhaps there has been time for Gasquet to ignore the fact he has lost the last six matches against the 'Tower of Tandil'. The head to head is another poor one Gasquet has against the very best players on the Tour, but he should be ready for this match having already won in the First Round against Leonardo Mayer to get a feel for the conditions.
He is also going to be facing a Del Potro who played, and lost, the Beijing Final just a few days ago and had to make the surprisingly long journey down to Shanghai for this tournament.
Last year Del Potro did enjoy what have been quicker conditions in Shanghai and he reached the Semi Final in this event. You can see Del Potro is much happier with his all around game these days with the wrist injury that has affected his backhand arguably stronger than it has been since before the issue first came up in 2010.
Del Potro is a US Open Finalist, but he might be disappointed he didn't add to his titles in 2018 in Final losses in Los Cabos and Beijing when he was a strong favourite in both. He will want to continue the positive momentum built up by winning here and his numbers on the hard courts are the strongest Del Potro has produced in his career.
The serve is a potent weapon for the Argentinian but the Del Potro return has been underrated and I think that gives Gasquet considerable problems to deal with. The Frenchman has the quality to look after his serve, but the return numbers have been much weaker this season compared to last and dropped off significantly from 2016.
That should mean Gasquet is under immense pressure to stay in the match throughout this contest and only fatigue can keep Del Potro from winning the match. I am not anticipating big issues for the big man and I think he will be a little too aggressive on the return which can force the mistakes from Gasquet and allow Del Potro to win and cover in this one.
Kei Nishikori - 5.5 games v Yibing Wu: Winning in Tokyo would have been the perfect homecoming for Kei Nishokori but he came up just short after going down to Daniil Medvedev in the Final on Sunday. The points earned has got Nishikori a little closer to the top eight in the Race to London, but he needs another strong showing in Shanghai to take advantage of the early exits Marin Cilic and Dominic Thiem have suffered.
The first match for him in Shanghai comes against a home player who is considered a key part of the future for Chinese tennis. Yibing Wu is still 19 years old and he beat a fellow Chinese player to make it through to this big stage against one of the best ATP players in the world.
It is a big gap for Wu to bridge with the majority of his time spent on the Challenger circuit as he looks to build his confidence. That has yet to happen for a player Ranked outside the top 400, but the First Round win here will help Wu improve his World Ranking and perhaps start making the move he would be hoping for.
Wu is going to need to play one of his best matches of his career and he has to hope Nishikori is fatigued from the effort he put together in Tokyo before flying over to Shanghai. The numbers produced by the young Chinese player have been decent enough for the Challenger circuit but this is a big step up and he has taken comfortable losses to Felix Auger Aliassime and Malek Jaziri over the last couple of weeks as he looks to take advantage of the home tournaments being played on the main Tour.
Nishikori's numbers have begun to improve on the hard courts after a few months off with an injury and he looked to be in fine form in Tokyo. There are still matches where Nishikori suddenly produces a really sub-par effort which makes it tough to really trust him when it comes to the bigger numbers on the handicaps, but the numbers on both the serve and return should give him a big edge over Wu in this one.
Sometimes the unfamiliarity of an opponent can take a top player off his game and that may be something that works for Wu who will have the home fans behind him. However I do think Nishikori stays mentally balanced and that should be enough to secure around four breaks of serve which should be enough to cover this number.
Roger Federer - 3.5 games v Daniil Medvedev: For now Roger Federer is still Ranked above Novak Djokovic which means he is the Number 1 Seed in Shanghai as the Swiss superstar returns to the court for the first time since the US Open. Some will consider the Laver Cup as competitive action, but I still think that competition is developing beyond a glorified exhibition event and this will be a different atmosphere for Federer.
He goes straight into a tough situation against Daniil Medvedev who has been in fine form for a couple of months on the hard courts and made a significant move up the World Rankings.
The young Russian has moved to the brink of cracking the top 20 in the World Rankings after winning the title in Tokyo and he battled through a tough match in the First Round here in Shanghai. Medvedev's numbers have taken a huge jump on the hard courts in the 2018 season and the title won in Tokyo is the second he has earned in two months after also winning in Winston Salem.
There is a real belief in the way Medvedev is playing at the moment and it is the slight improvement on the return over the last couple of months which has made all the difference for him. However I do have to wonder how much has been taken out of Medvedev by all the tennis and travel he has had to do over the last two weeks after Qualifying for Tokyo before winning the title as well as the tough First Round match he had here against an opponent I would usually expect Medvedev to beat fairly routinely.
Roger Federer has had a few weeks to get himself mentally ready for the end of the 2018 season as we almost enter a period of the season in which he usually thrives. It was surprising to hear Federer suggest he had almost mentally checked out of his upset loss to John Millman at the US Open, but you can't dismiss the very impressive numbers Federer continues to boast on the hard courts which makes him amongst the favourites to win any tournament held on this surface.
He has perhaps not returned quite as well as he would have liked in 2018- the actual percentage of return points have stayed steady, but Federer has not been as clinical on the break points and that has seen a real drop in the percentage of breaks of serve he has been able to produce. The serve continues to put immense pressure on his opponents though and I think that is going to be key to cracking what has to be a tired opponent both physically and mentally.
It may take a bit of time for Federer to just get his feet comfortable back on a tennis court, but once he does that I do think he can find a late break in each of the first two sets to win and cover this number.
MY PICKS: Alexander Zverev - 3.5 Games @ 1.91 Boyle Sports (2 Units)
Juan Martin Del Potro - 3.5 Games @ 1.85 William Hill (2 Units)
Kei Nishikori - 5.5 Games @ 2.00 Bet Fred (2 Units)
Roger Federer - 3.5 Games @ 1.83 Boyle Sports (2 Units)
Alex De Minaur - 1.5 Games @ 1.91 Bet Fred (2 Units)
Kyle Edmund - 3.5 Games @ 1.80 Ladbrokes (2 Units)
Karen Khachanov - 1.5 Games @ 1.83 Boyle Sports (2 Units)
Keven Anderson - 3.5 Games @ 2.00 Bet Fred (2 Units)
Roberto Bautista Agut - 3.5 Games @ 1.85 William Hill (2 Units)
Garbine Muguruza - 5.5 Games @ 1.91 Bet Fred (2 Units)
Katerina Siniakova - 2.5 Games @ 1.91 William Hill (2 Units)
Anna Karolina Schmiedlova + 3.5 Games @ 1.91 Ladbrokes (2 Units)
Shanghai Masters Update: 2-0, + 3.66 Units (4 Units Staked, + 91.50% Yield)
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