Sho Shimabukuro vs Hugo Gaston U.S. Open Preview and Expert Tip: Gaston to Grind Down Shimabukuro in Opening Round Tilt

Sho Shimabukuro vs Hugo Gaston (U.S. Open): Monday, August 28th

The year’s final slam is here. We head in with a nice result on Friday evening, as Felipe Meligeni did his best to squander a match he served to win in straight sets, but somehow had to save match points in order to get the job done.

For Monday’s ATP preview (though the U.S. Open isn’t governed by the ATP), we’ll get our main draw previews going at the U.S. Open where Monday’s action on the tennis courts comes fast and furious. Let’s preview Hugo Gaston vs Sho Shimabukuro in first round action.

In this article:

• Hugo Gaston vs Sho Shimabukuro Expert Tip
• Sho Shimabukuro Recent Form
• Hugo Gaston Recent Form
• Hugo Gaston vs Sho Shimabukuro H2H Stat of the Match
• Gamble Responsibly

Hugo Gaston vs Sho Shimabukuro Expert Tip

Moving from the best-of-three set format into the longer best-of-five set matches makes me really like Gaston in this spot.

He loves playing long matches, he’s physically fit enough to do so, has the consistency from the baseline to wear players down and he has experience in this format before. As strong as Shimabukuro looked in qualifying, I do think Gaston had some nice wins as well and has proven a bit more at the higher levels of the game than his Japanese counterpart in this one.

Read on for more expert insights.

• Expert Tip: Gaston to win at 2.05 with Pinnacle, using 5/10 stakes.

Sho Shimabukuro Recent Form

It’s been a pretty average hard-court summer for the 26-year-old after he qualified for Wimbledon.

Prior to qualifying, he had just a few wins to speak of and had a few confounding losses (primarily as a favourite to Americans Bradley Klahn and Tristan Boyer) and didn’t really manage to push the best players he faced along the way.

His style does lend itself to success on hard courts, however. He has a decent serve and likes to play that first-strike tennis. When you factor in how flat he hits the ball, you can understand why he was able to find a few wins in qualifying.

The question remains whether or not he can avoid hitting too many errors against someone who is an expert at coaxing them from his opposition.

Hugo Gaston Recent Form

It’s been another wild stretch of events for Gaston, who continues to be one of the more puzzling players on tour.

After several months of struggling to find wins, the Frenchman won back-to-back clay titles down at the Challenger level, before losing from a set up and retiring just one game from defeat in his bid to go back-to-back-to-back. It was certainly a bad look for the 22-year-old that went noticed within the betting community.

He played just one tuneup match on a hard court, losing to Jason Kubler in Cincinnati, before winning each of his three qualifying contests in a deciding set.

The loopy forehand and dogged consistency from the baseline shouldn’t be underestimated and don’t count him out to play attacking tennis if you leave anything too short. He can not only flatten his shots out when in advantageous positions to do so, but can hit those bigger shots into smaller targets as well – something many cannot do.

Sho Shimabukuro vs Hugo Gaston H2H – Stat of the Match

This is the first meeting between the two Challenger Tour regulars.

In terms of the stat of the match for this one, it has to be the number of best-of-five set matches each of them have played.

Shimabukuro enters with just two career matches played in this format. They both came at Wimbledon this year, with his final round of qualifying victory over Denis Kudla and then his dismantling at the hands of Grigor Dimitrov.

Gaston on the other hand has played over a dozen matches where a third set is needed to secure the win, and has had his fair share of wins and matches that have gone the distance.

That experience edge, along with his ability to prolong points and grind opponents down really provides some reassurance in a match that could very well see four or five sets played to decide the outcome.

Odds as at 2:30 am UK Time on August 28th, 2023. Odds may now differ.

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