Olympic Tennis: Best Bets for Thursday 8/1/24

The men's and women's singles tennis tournaments are underway at the Paris Olympics. On Thursday, the men are into the quarterfinals while the women are down to the semifinals.

Where can we find betting value in the next batch of matches?

Olympic Tennis Best Bet

Tommy Paul vs. Carlos Alcaraz

Paul +5.5 Games (-122)

While Carlos Alcaraz is a massive favorite (-710) in this quarterfinal, I like Tommy Paul's chances of keeping things competitive and covering this sizable spread.

Alcaraz has won all three of his matches in straight sets thus far, but two of them were won by just six games -- barely covering this spread -- against Tallon Griekspoor (world No. 28) and Roman Safiullin (world No. 66), and Paul (world No. 13) should be a step up in competition.

In fact, Paul also hasn't dropped a set through three rounds, which included defeating France's Corentin Moutet 7-6, 6-2 despite a raucous, pro-France crowd. The American also came into the Olympics with a solid 7-3 clay record this season and had a run to the semifinals at the Italian Open.

But what's most intriguing here is that Paul is 2-3 lifetime versus Alcaraz, and just one of those losses were in straight sets (6-4, 6-4). Paul recently faced the Spaniard in the Wimbledon quarterfinals and was able to take the eventual champion to four sets.

These two have never played on clay before, which is Alcaraz's wheelhouse, but Paul is playing well enough to suggest he can stay within this spread and perhaps even steal a set.

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