US Open Betting: Step Aside America, Canadian Contingent Mean Business
The Billie Jean King National Tennis Center will be serving up the US Open Tennis tournament in just a couple of weeks, bringing the 2022 Grand Slam season to a close. And just as it is every year on the tennis event calendar, US Open betting markets are in high demand, with fans backing their favourite players and astute punters mentally pitting tennis stars against one another in mind-matches.
Among these picks are Canada’s finest tennis stars. This year several of the country’s players are in the mix for the men’s and women’s US Open titles.
They might not be the favourites in the tennis odds (since those spots are reserved for the world number-ones Novak Djokovic and Iga Swiatek), but they’re not to be discounted.
Canadian tennis players generally perform well when competing on US soil; the travel is generally less gruelling and the environment typically more familiar. That said, there has yet to be a tennis player from Canada to win the men’s title… though the women have enjoyed some more success in recent years.
2021 was only the second time a Canadian player made it into either final, with the first coming in 2019 when Bianca Andreescu beat Serena Williams. With that renewed confidence, the country’s contingent at the US Open means business as it marches to Queens, New York, on a Canadian conquest.
Can any of them get the job done? Bodog has the live odds on hand, as well as the US Open prospects of each homegrown tennis talent to see who is most likely to deliver another source of national pride.
Felix Auger-Aliassime (+2000)
First up on our list is Felix Auger-Aliassime, with odds of +2000.
Originally from Montreal, the 22-year-old turned pro five years ago and has continually improved his performances each year since.
While he’s yet to win a Grand Slam title, Auger-Aliassime did win his first singles title this year at the 2022 Rotterdam Open, where he outplayed Egor Gerasimov, Andy Murray, Cameron Norrie, and Andrey Rublev, thank you very much. And just so there was no room to dismiss the win as a spot of dumb luck, the tennis star gave us an encore in the 2022 Open 13 Provence with a tidy second-place finish.
Auger-Aliassime has made it to the quarterfinals in three of the four Grand Slams, with a fourth-round exit – his best finish – in the French Open. However, it’s on US soil that the Canadian has in fact had the most success.
In 2021, he played his way into the semi-finals of the US Open. However, his journey to the final match was blocked by world no. 2 Daniil Medvedev, who defeated Auger-Aliassime in straight sets.
Canadian should remain optimistic;, Auger-Aliassime is still prone to forced errors, but he’s also improving with age. If he can adequately mitigate those errors over time, we could see him rise up to one of the best Canadian sports stars and take his first Grand Slam win.
Denis Shapovalov (+6600)
Denis Shapovalov, a year older than Auger-Aliassime, has followed a similar career trajectory to his domestic tennis rival. Since turning pro, also in 2017, the Canadian has won one single singles title (say it ten times for your country) and has reached at least the quarterfinals in all but one of the Grand Slam events.
Shapovalov’s best performance in a Grand Slam came at last year’s Wimbledon tournament when he made it to the semi-finals. However, as all tennis players in the men’s competition can sympathise with, he was sent packing by Novak Djokovic after losing in straight sets.
This year, he started with a victory when he and Auger-Aliassime helped Canada to win its first-ever ATP Cup title. The pair beat Russia’a Daniil Medvedev and Roman Safiullin in the semi-finals, and then gave Spain’s Pablo Carreño Busta and Roberto Bautista Agut a similar dressing down.
From here, Shapovalov went on to reach the quarterfinals of the Australian Open, thus far his best performance Down Under.
Shapovalov’s court performances haven’t gone quite as well in more recent months, most notably when he lost to Brandon Nakashima at Wimbledon, and this is reflected in his lower US Open odds of +6600… but one should never discount a Canadian sportsman at crunch time.
Bianca Andreescu (+1600)
Now to the women’s competition, where we find Canada’s best chances of success in this year’s US Open. First up is Bianca Andreescu, who happens to be the only one of our four subjects still residing in the country.
Andreescu turned pro not so long ago in 2017, but she’s already enjoyed more success than her male counterparts with three titles to her name; more than Shapovalov and Auger-Aliassime combined.
Bianca claimed her first Premier Mandatory title in 2019 at the Newport Beach Challenger, but it was back in 2016 in Gatineau that Andreescu won her first ITF title.
That same year, at the US Open, she became the first player to ever win the American Grand Slam in their debut entry into the main draw. Over this one year, she went from being ranked 152nd to just 5th.
2020 took aim at most intentions as a pandemic swept through countries as well as courts, and left Bianca Andreescu, who was also dealing with a knee injury, without a means to defend her title. Consequently, just as rapidly as she’d shot up through the rankings, Andreescu took a tumble to 46th in the global singles rankings.
Returning to the situation on the ground, injuries continued to plague Andreescu’s opening months of 2022, but at some point the tide began to turn, and she went on to reach the final at the Bad Homburg Open.
Injuries persist for Andreescu as she sets her sights on re-establishing that elite ranking, but if she can play around them, you might just be looking at Canada’s best chance for success.
Leylah Annie Fernandez (+2800)
Leylah Annie Fernandez’s odds of +2800 don’t quite reflect her performance at last year’s US Open. The Canadian reached the final before eventually losing to Britain’s Emma Raducanu.
Fernandez is just a fledgling at 19, making her the youngest of our four Canadian contenders. She also turned pro more recently, in 2019.
So far, among the 2022 events, she’s made her best showing in the French Open, earning herself both a spot in the quarterfinals for the first time, and a foot fracture that dashed any chance of a repeat at Wimbledon. But time is on her side, and so is history: prior to the US Open result, Fernandez won the Monterrey Open in Mexico for the second time, beating Camila Osorio in the final.
Fernandez’s longer-than-usual odds reflect the uncertainty created by her injury. But with youth well and truly on her side, Hernandez wasn’t being naive when she told reporters: “it won’t keep me off the court for long”. The recovery was swift, and the rising star was back on the court by early July to test her post-injury mettle. Her medical team seem to be erring on the side of caution, because The Citi Open in Washington at the end of July ‘22 was one Leylah Annie Fernandez short, but the lingering question remains, leaving room for doubt about her chances in New York.
Although Andreescu and Fernandez offer our best US Open betting chances, all of these players have a shot at a US Open title. If you think they can outplay their opponents and overcome the odds, get your slips in at Bodog and take a swing at it; you might earn yourself some killer Canadian tennis value right here. Game, set bet, match.