ATP Masters Cincinnati: Tournament Preview and Picks
by Bradley Gibbs | by Bradley Gibbs
Fast and furious
In Cincinnati it’s all about speed. The courts are quick, very quick, make no mistake about that. This favors those who can weaponise big serves and big hitters in general, as the speed of the courts make it rather tricky to return the ball with any sort of accuracy.
To give us an idea of the court speed in Cincinnati, in 2024, James Draper said "I think it’s the fastest court I’ve ever played on in my life, honestly.”. Also last year, multiple Grand Slam champion Carlos Alcaraz had this to say: “It felt like another sport playing on the Centre Court today. The balls felt much faster. I just couldn’t control my serve.".
A year before Alcaraz and Draper commented on the speed of things in Cincinnati, legend of the game Novak Djokovic also talked about the speed of the courts, stating that the surfaces in Cincinnati are easily among the fastest on tour.
As mentioned above, top servers do very, very well in Cincinnati. Supporting this is the fact that Jannik Sinner, Novak Djokovic and Alexander Zverev, all of whom rank very highly among ATP serve leaders on the ATP, have won between them four of the last five renewals of this event. That tells us plenty.
Previous top servers such as Nick Kyrgios, Milos Raonic and John Isner have also reached the final of this speed-focused event since 2013, which also speaks volumes about the conditions.
Top players get it done in Cincinnati
Typically, on speedy courts, the cream rises, and that’s certainly been the case in Cincinnati in recent times.
This is a prize that has generally gone to a high-ranking player, with Jannik Sinner getting the job done last year, securing the title
Let’s look at the last ten winners of this event to see where they ranked at the time of their victory:
2024 - Jannik Sinner (Ranked 1st)
2023 - Novak Djokovic (Ranked 2nd)
2022 - Borna Coric (Ranked 152nd)
2021 - Alexander Zverev (Ranked 5th)
2020 - Novak Djokovic (Ranked 1st)
2019 - Daniil Medvedev (Ranked 8th)
2018 - Novak Djokovic (Ranked 6th)
2017 - Grigor Dimitrov (Ranked 9th)
2016 - Marin Cilic (Ranked 14th)
2015 - Roger Federer (Ranked 2nd)
What does the above tell us? Well, it tells us that genuine upsets, while possible, are very rare at this tournament. Sure, Borna Coric surprised everyone by winning the title when ranked outside the top 100 in 2022, but he’s the only genuine outsider to get over the line in Cincinnati in a long, long time. The only other outsider to triumph in anything like the recent past was Carlos Moya, who won back in 2002, and even he was ranked just outside the top ten.
You could of course argue that Cilic was an outsider, but given the conditions in Cincinnati, despite being ranked 14th, Cilic, who was arguably the best server on tour at the time of his 2016 victory, doesn’t really fall into that category.
As we can see, high-ranking players do very well in Cincinnati, and it really is incredibly rare for a player not ranked in the top ten to win this event. Even if you go all the way back into the 1990’s, nearly every winner of this tournament ranked in the top ten, many in the top five, so if you think you’re going to pick out a big-priced, low-ranking gem ahead of the action this week, you might want to think again.
Where does the value lie in the futures market?
Both Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz are in the draw this week, which means that the futures market is highly focused on the top two. Sinner comes in as the +100 favorite, while Alcaraz follows at +200. It’s highly possible that Sinner retains his title, while an Alcaraz win is far from unlikely either, but for my money, those two being available at very short odds means that there’s probably some value elsewhere. After all, the Italian and the Spaniard are not the only top competitors involved.
As far as I’m concerned, Alexander Zverev is the value bet in the futures market. The German has all the ingredients required for success in Cincinnati, as he proved when clinching the title back in 2021, defeating Andrey Rublev in the final.
Zverev, as the world number three, meets the high-ranking criteria too, while it’s not as if he played poorly in Toronto last week, reaching the semi-finals. That was his first taste of hard-court tennis post Wimbledon and he certainly played well, defeating the reigning champion on his way to a reaching the final four, where he was only a narrow loser. With that positive experience under his belt, moving on to courts that better suit his game, Zverev is not a player to ignore.
After all, we’ve seen Zverev follow up his 2021 success at this tournament by reaching the semis in both 2023 and 2024, when he took Sinner all the way to a third-set tie break, so I really wouldn’t be surprised if he’s around as the tournament gets very serious this time next week. With generous-looking odds of +1600 on offer, Zverev is my guy.
Our ATP Masters Cincinnati Pick: Alexander Zverev to win the title.
