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PREVIEW

On Thursday I backed Pablo Carreno Busta and Kyle Edmund to win their Quarter Final matches, but Steve Johnson had other ideas. The American had shown very little form to take into the US Open, but he has produced some of his best tennis this week in New Haven and he will certainly be a tough out the rest of the way. However I continue to insist Pablo Carreno Busta is being under-rated on the hard courts and he has already beaten Johnson in straight sets at the Miami Masters earlier in 2018. They did play a much closer match on the clay courts since then, but Johnson was perhaps a little fortunate that day having saved 11/14 break points in the match and taking his chances to win the second set. You could argue Johnson is in the middle of his best form of the season on the hard courts having won his three matches as impressively as he has. It is easily the best three consecutive matches he has played on the hard courts since Delray Beach back in February and Johnson has to be playing with a lot of confidence at the moment. The American has to be respected for the big improvement he has made on the return side of his game which makes him more dangerous if he can maintain the numbers on the serve. While the 22% break percentage is perhaps not the greatest number you will see, it is an improvement from Johnson and makes him a player that could cause some problems in the upcoming US Open. However there had been one or two struggles from Johnson in the last month prior to the week in Winston Salem and now he faces an opponent who is serving as well as at any time in his career. Pablo Carreno Busta was only broken once by Hyeon Chung, a very good returner, in his Quarter Final win and he was under very little pressure for much of the match. The Spaniard is a very good returner on the hard courts which has sparked his good results on the surface over the last twelve months. I am sure Carreno Busta would like to be a little more clinical with the break point chances he is creating, but even with that in mind I would favour him to win this match and I think he is being a little under-rated in this match. He was clearly the better player on the day when he beat Johnson in Miami and I will look for Carreno Busta to win and cover in this Semi Final.