Of course that only becomes an issue if players are to reach the Semi Final in the two United States venues that are hosting this week and the opportunity to pick up a title ahead of the US Open can only be a positive.
The Quarter Final of the tournaments in Washington and Memphis will be played on Friday, but the tournament in Los Cabos is ensuring that the Final is played on Saturday to allow players to travel to Montreal for the Canadian Masters. There is clearly less travel time between Memphis and Washington to Montreal/Toronto, but the expansion of those Masters events in August has placed an additional pressure on the calendar, much to the frustration of players and fans alike.
There is o only so much room to fit in tournament as it is, which has resulted in a decision to have the Canadian Masters Final played in the middle of the week rather than the traditional weekend spot. It happened for the first time last year and it is part of the reason players are asking the governors of the sport to get together and figure out a better calendar plan, although that has been something that has long been asked without much being done anyway.
Taylor Fritz-Alex Michelsen over 0.5 tie-breakers: This is the third meeting on the Tour between these compatriots and Alex Michelsen is looking to beat the higher Ranked player for a third time.
After winning a Challenger title, Alex Michelsen has arrived in Washington filled with confidence and has been largely untroubled in getting through the opening couple of matches. He will still be expecting more out of the serve having faced 18 Break Points in those two matches, but Michelsen has been returning with some confidence and he has played the big points effectively this week.
Alex Michelsen will be happy with the majority of his ATP level results on the hard courts and he has held 86% of service games played on the surface.
There is still room for improvement on the returning numbers if Michelsen is going to take the next step in his career, but he has found a way to get into the Taylor Fritz serve, which is perhaps a surprise.
Taylor Fritz has won his two matches in Washington very well and he has built on his run at Wimbledon, although perhaps still playing through the pain barrier in order to be ready for the US Open. He is a very comfortable hard court player and Fritz has been in decent form in terms of the numbers, although he is going to need to put together some strong runs in the next couple of months to try and break the thirty win mark in a single season on this surface yet again.
Over the course of the season, Taylor Fritz is holding 89% of his service games on the hard courts and winning 71% of points played, but he struggled to really impose this part of his tennis on Alex Michelsen when losing to him at Indian Wells earlier this year.
Those numbers read 81% and 62% in the defeat to Michelsen and Taylor Fritz will need to be better, even if the scoreboard showed he was on the wrong side of a narrow loss.
It was Alex Michelsen who was much closer to his usual kind of numbers on the hard courts and this has the making of another match that will feature plenty of holds of serve. You have to anticipate at least one tie-breaker, which has been priced up quite appealingly, while the form this week suggests both have a comfortable serving rhythm on the Washington courts.
Small moments can have a big consequence on the score, and these two did create a lot of Break Points against one another when they met in Indian Wells.
A few more may have to be swatted away in this Quarter Final, but both Fritz and Michelsen are capable of doing that for long enough in a single set to at least reach that tie-breaker moment.
MY PICKS: Taylor Fritz-Alex Michelsen Over 0.5 Tie-Breakers @ 1.83 Bet365 (1 Unit)
Diana Shnaider @ 1.85 William Hill (1 Unit)
Cameron Norrie @ 1.80 Bet365 (1 Unit)
Weekly Update: 3-2, + 0.46 Units (5 Units Staked, + 9.20% Yield)
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