Stefanos Tsitsipas vs Reilly Opelka Prediction & Betting Tips - Toronto, Canada

Prediction published on 14/08/2021, 07:32  by Steve Ashfield | Modified on 14/08/2021 at 09:32 in ATP Toronto Predictions

World number three Stefanos Tsitsipas takes on Reilly Opelka in the National Bank Open semi-final. Tsitsipas is chasing his third title of the year and his second at this ATP 1000 level. The Greek player began this year ranked in sixth place but only Novak Djokovic and Daniil Medvedev have earned more ranking points than him this season. Tsitsipas has won titles in Monte Carlo and Lyon and also reached finals at Roland Garros, Barcelona and Acapulco. Tsitsipas went off the boil a bit after his French Open final but has returned to form this week in Toronto. He began with a three-set win over Ugo Humbert, revenge for his loss to the Frenchman at the Tokyo Olympics. Since then he's had straight set wins over Karen Khachanov and Casper Ruud. He's had one previous match against Opelka. That was in Cincinnati last year with Tsitsipas winning when Opelka retired at 6-5 down in the first set.

Reilly Opelka is the world number 32 but up to 27th in the live rankings. A win over Tsitsipas would take the American up to 23rd. He didn't reach the last eight of a tournament until May of this year when getting to the semi-finals at the Rome Masters where he lost to Rafael Nadal. No one ranked higher than 27th was beaten that week. Even though he has a heavy serve, his grass court season didn't go well. Back on hard courts he made it to the last eight in Atlanta last month losing a three-set match to Taylor Fritz, each set going to a tie-break. In Toronto this week, Opelka has beaten Nick Kyrgios in three sets (first set lost), 14th seeded Grigor Dimitrov, Lloyd Harris (again from a set down) and tenth seed Roberto Bautista Agut. So far he's played four tie-breaks this week. Back Tsitsipas to win this match in straight sets and have a side-bet on a tie-break.