As I have already said, I do not believe that Rafael Nadal will be able to win the US Open. However, he came through the first round well – easily beating Denis Istomin, whilst Andreas Seppi came through in four sets against Stephen Robert.
Nadal and Seppi played each other at the Olympics where Nadal easily beat the Italian 6:3 6:3. In my opinion, Nadal was in worse shape there than he is in now. For that match he had only just come back after a break, whereas he is now in better condition, though still far from his peak.
Seppi didn’t seem to have a plan that could help him defeat Nadal in Rio and i’m not sure he’ll have one here. Having said that, he has previously managed to overcome the Spaniard once, but it was a very long time ago.
It is surprising that the Italian has won against similar classy players to Nadal such as Roger Federer. But all in all, Rafa is expected to experience a fairly routine victory here and thus under 31.5 match games looks very likely.
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