Ricardas Berankis vs. Novak Djokovic – 8/24/20 Cincinnati Tennis Pick, Odds, and Prediction

Novak Djokovic and Ricardas Berankis meet in the second round of the 2020 tennis Western & Southern Open.

Novak Djokovic will play his first meaningful match since Dubai back in February, so it’s going to be interesting to see what his conditioning is like, especially after testing positive for COVID. Djokovic played six exhibition matches in the Adria Tour, and he won five of those contests. It may take Djokovic some time to get his feet under him after missing so much time on the court, but certainly a deep run in this tournament would surprise nobody. Djokovic won Cincinnati in 2018 and has made the final in six of his last 10 appearances. Djokovic has won 10 straight matches on hard court.

Ricardas Berankis is coming off a three sets win over Tommy Paul that took 35 games to decide. In the victory, Berankis won 75 percent of his first serve points and 55 percent of his second serve points. Berankis won 68 percent of his total service points and converted on four of his 10 break points. Berankis showed great heart to find a way to win a match despite dropping the first set in a tiebreak, and he saved two of his four break points. Berankis has played a lot of recent tennis, which includes two qualifying matches for this tournament, so he should be feeling good about his game compared to others. Berankis has two career wins over top-10 players, with the most recent coming in the 2016 Swiss Indoors. Berankis has won six straight matches on hard court.

These two have played once, which was in the 2013 US Open, a match Djokovic won in straight sets. The match took 23 games to be decided.

This is an interesting match when you consider Djokovic hasn’t played all that much over these last several months, while Berankis has knocked the rust off. A potential upset? I wouldn’t talk you off the ledge. Then again, Berankis has little to no success against top tier players in his career and he’s never made it out of the second round in a ATP World Tour Masters 1000. Things like that matter when going up against a guy like Djokovic, who can beat his opponent mentally even if his opponent doesn’t have it physically. 

Give me Djokovic in straight sets.