Madison Keys meets Wang on the fast hard courts of Cincinnati, and the market has already decided how it should look: Keys as a heavy favourite, asked to win by five games or more. The result is one thing, the margin is another, and the two have rarely agreed in her matches this summer.
One player wins ugly, the other loses slowly
Keys arrived at her best performance of the week against Katerina Siniakova, a genuinely controlled match in which she never let the resistance build. The route there was less convincing: she dropped the opening set to Snigur, and earlier gave up first sets to Anisimova and Kayla Day.
Her recent record has the same shape elsewhere. She lost a break in the deciding set against Samsonova in Washington and came apart against Kostyuk in Toronto. Wang, meanwhile, has had two stages handed to her by a Timofeeva retirement and Svitolina's withdrawal, but she also recovered from a set down against Fernandez here.
Where the extra 4.5 games come from
The left-handed serve from the advantage court gives Keys an unfamiliar geometry, and Wang's heavy crosscourt forehand forces one more neutral ball than the American likes to play. Wang's recent defeats to McNally and Bejlek were three-set grinds, not demolitions.
Almost every Keys match this month has contained a stretch where the opponent takes three or four games in a row. A -4.5 line does not survive that, and it does not even survive 6-4 6-4. The cushion is worth backing.
Prediction: Wang +4.5 games, odds 2.10
