The Pick, presented by DraftKings Sportsbook: Maxime Cressy vs. Emil Ruusuvuori, Miami 

World No. 71 Emil Ruusuvuori is a -180 favorite in his match-up with world No. 72 Maxime Cressy in the opening round of the Miami Open on Wednesday. These two have only met once in their careers, with Ruusuvuori prevailing with a 6-3, 3-6, 6-4 victory at a Challenger event in Slovakia back in 2019. Both players have improved their games significantly since then, as they are now true forces on the ATP tour.

Coming into this match, it isn’t too hard to see why the oddsmakers have Ruusuvuori as the likely winner in this one. The 22-year-old has won eight of his last 13 matches and has proven himself to be a lot more reliable than Cressy from the baseline at this point. The American is actually on a four-match losing streak entering this event, as he suffered opening-round losses in Dallas, Delray Beach and Indian Wells. Those results were a bit disappointing considering Cressy won three matches at the Australian Open in January after making his first ATP final at the Melbourne Summer Set 1.

Despite the fact that Cressy has lost four in a row, he’s still doing enough to help opportunistic bettors win some money. The American has forced a deciding set in each of his last three matches, which is part of the reason the Over on the game total of 22.5 is looking so enticing in this meeting with Ruusuvuori.

Even if Cressy isn’t doing enough to close out matches with victories, his serve is always going to put tiebreakers in play. In fact, five of the last nine sets that the 24-year-old has played have ended up going to a tiebreaker. If one of the first two sets in this match against Ruusuvuori does the same, you could cash the Over as long as there are 10 games played in the other one. That seems like a pretty realistic score line considering both of these players have power-heavy styles, utilizing their serves and big ground strokes to give them an edge over opponents.

Of course, Cressy could also make things really easy on bettors by simply winning one of those tiebreakers and forcing a third set. If these two end up going to a decider, that would make this a stress-free victory for those that decided to join us on this play. Overall, there’s just a lot of value in hoping for that to happen, especially considering this is one of the tournaments that is played on a Laykold hard-court surface. These courts are a lot faster than the ones you saw at Indian Wells last week, which favors a player like Cressy that is looking to serve and volley as much as possible.

The Pick: Over 22.5 Games (-150)