Pick of the Day: Jiri Lehecka vs. Frances Tiafoe, Cincinnati

Don’t look now, but Frances Tiafoe is beginning to find his form. After a trying start to the 2024 season, filled with losses to “clowns”, Tiafoe has won eight of his last 12 matches.

The most recent was arguably the most impressive of them all, as Tiafoe earned a 6-3, 6-2 win over a red-hot Lorenzo Musetti. Between that, a 6-4, 7-6 (3) win over Andrey Rublev in D.C. and a five-set loss to eventual champion Carlos Alcaraz in Wimbledon, Tiafoe is looking the part of a Top 10 player again. With that in mind, I’m rolling with the American to beat Jiri Lehecka in the round of 16 at the Cincinnati Open.

Lehecka is coming off a really big win over Daniil Medvedev, so people are going to quickly assume that the 22-year-old is back to his early-season form. But how much credit does Lehecka really deserve for that victory? Medvedev has now lost each of his last three matches, and he just hasn’t looked sharp in recent months. Lehecka really just had to put balls in play and allow Medvedev to beat himself, and the Czech eventually got his opportunities to steal that win. With this marking Lehecka's first appearance since sustaining a back injury in Madrid, it's not fair to expect him to produce top-level tennis.

Lehecka is still going to have his moments where his serve is going to look rather untouchable. But he only made 56.1% of his first serves against Navone and 62.7% of them against Medvedev. Both of those marks are below his season-long number of 63.9%. And if Lehecka isn’t serving as well as he does on a normal day, he’s going to have a hard time winning this match. Tiafoe’s ability to hit his spots on his serve, and also come finish points at the net, is going to make it difficult on Lehecka to find success as a returner. And longer rallies should favor Tiafoe right now, as the American is really feeling it and Lehecka still hasn’t played a lot of matches.

It just feels like this is a really good spot to back Tiafoe, who loves the North American summer hard-court portion of the season as much as anyone.

Pick: Tiafoe To Win (-125)