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Two of tennis’ bright young talents will go to head-to-head on Thursday night in Cincinnati, Ohio, and judging by the odds, it should be a doozy when World No. 9 Felix Auger-Aliassime takes on World No. 12 Jannik Sinner. We hit a huge underdog in Rafael Nadal’s loss yesterday, so we will hope to keep the momentum going.

Bookmakers have installed Sinner as the slightest of favorites, though at -120/+104 the match is essentially a coin flip.

After a terrific run through the clay and grass seasons that included a title in Umag and a five-set loss to Novak Djokovic in the Wimbledon quarterfinals, Sinner’s momentum was stopped a little bit in Montreal, as he lost in Round 2 to eventual winner Pablo Carreno-Busta. Sinner followed that up by barely escaping against Thanasi Kokkinakis in his first match in Cincinnati. The Italian looked the part in Round 2, where he got a relatively easy win over Miomir Kecmanovic, who retired down 7-5, 3-1. 

While Sinner’s results seem to be trending in the right direction for the most part, Auger-Aliassime’s path to Cincinnati has been far from straightforward. The 22-year-old Canadian entered Wimbledon as a trendy pick to make a deep run only to lose in Round 1 to serve-and-volley specialist Maxime Cressy. Auger-Aliassime followed that up with another first-round exit on the grass, losing as a big favorite to Jason Kubler in Newport.

The Canadian looked back on track by making a semifinal run at Los Cabos and that had a lot of people backing FAA to win his hometown tournament in Montreal last week. Auger-Aliassime would win two matches in Montreal, but then he completely folded in a 6-1, 6-2 loss to Casper Ruud in the quarterfinals. FAA’s performance in Montreal was a pretty good microcosm of his career to date. He looked like he was on his way to a big showing through two rounds, then almost out of nowhere came completely undone. 

Both Sinner and Auger-Aliassime have match-winning weapons in their arsenal. They both are great on serve (Sinner has a 83.9% hold rate on hard courts over the last year and FAA has an 84.4% hold rate), but it’s the Italian who has the better return numbers (27.6% to 18.8%) and is the more consistent player at this point in time. 

That consistency and Sinner’s ability to keep his cool in big moments makes him the better bet in what is being priced as essentially a pick’em. 

The Bet: Jannik Sinner -120