Wednesday night’s headliner at the ATP Western & Southern Open is quite interesting from a betting standpoint.
On one side of the court stands Rafael Nadal, playing his first match since tearing his abdomen in a win over Taylor Fritz in the Wimbledon quarterfinals. On the other side is underdog Borna Coric, an immensely talented 25-year-old who has spent most of the last two seasons battling injuries.
Coric does look like he is starting to trend in the right direction, though, as the Croatian won a Challenger Tour title in July and is coming off an impressive win over Lorenzo Musetti in Round 1 of this tournament.
Despite that, Coric is still a massive +500 underdog against the returning Nadal on Wednesday night.
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Rafael Nadal vs. Borna Coric prediction
It’s pretty hard to imagine anybody feeling confident laying -690 on a player in his first game back after tearing his abdomen, but Nadal is the exception to many rules.
At this point in his career, Nadal is used to working his way back from long layoffs, whether due to injury or just managing his schedule. He won the Acapulco title following a month break after winning the Australian Open, he made it to the quarterfinals in Madrid after a two-month respite following Indian Wells and then he went to the semifinals at Wimbledon despite playing no grass-court matches in the month after he won at Roland Garros.
And even though Nadal is very likely to win this match, there are reasons to believe Coric can at least hang around. Not only is Coric match-fit, but he’s also split the four matches he’s played against Rafael in his career. Those matches all came between 2014 and 2017, so perhaps it’s not all that relevant, but it’s better than the alternative.
Besides his strong career numbers against Nadal, Coric backers can also feel confident that Nadal won’t be at the peak of his powers in his first competitive match after the break. Even though he won all of his contests immediately after long breaks this year, he did drop sets to Sebastian Korda and Francisco Cerundolo, and he was taken to a tie-breaker against Miomir Kecmanovic.
Even with his injury and concerns about rust, Nadal will likely win this match. But some faint signals are pointing to Coric being able to hang with the 22-time Grand Slam Champion, and at +500, that is enough to be interested. Tennis Abstract gives Coric a 19.9% chance of upsetting Nadal, and when you convert that to a two-way moneyline, you get +402, so there’s certainly some value in sprinkling some lunch money on Coric to pull off the stunner.
The Bet: Over 20.5 Games | Borna Coric +500 (FanDuel)