Our Amanda Anisimova vs Anastasia Potapova prediction starts with a simple problem: the side we like is also the side nobody can bet profitably. Anisimova is favored at -455 to reach the second week of the US Open, and while T Money's read of the match backs her, that price is too heavy for our card to touch.
This one is a PASS. Not a soft lean, not a name we are quietly rooting for, a full pass. No stake, no play, no unit attached. Here is the case we built anyway, and the reason the number kills it before the match even starts.
Why T Money likes Anisimova
Anisimova has looked the sharper player through two rounds on this hard court. She opened with a 6-1 6-3 win over No. 62 Ashlyn Krueger in 72 minutes, winning 65.6% of first serve points and 59.3% of second serve points with only four double faults. She followed that by beating Top-50 titlist Lilli Tagger 6-3 3-6 6-1, a tougher three setter where she still finished with 30 winners against 15 and split her unforced errors evenly with Tagger.
Potapova's path has been thinner. She beat lucky loser Darja Semenistaja 6-2 6-2, then needed three sets to get past wild card Leolia Jeanjean, a match where she won only 51.6% of total points and put up nine double faults. Stronger opposition, cleaner numbers, that is Anisimova's case in one line.
The number that matters
The return game is where this match actually gets decided. Against mid-tier servers this season, Anisimova is 12-3 with a 77% hold rate and a 41% break rate. Potapova, against the same tier of server, is 4-4 with a 59% hold rate and a 35% break rate. Both players carry similar overall return numbers, 46% of return points won and roughly 40% break rate leaguewide, but Anisimova's hold percentage separates her clearly once you isolate comparable competition.
Workload tilts her way too, 280 points played across her two matches against Potapova's 303, with both players last taking the court on September 3.
The case against
Potapova's path to an upset is not nothing. Her return game sits around a 40% baseline, and Anisimova's second serve has been the softer number in both wins, 59.3% against Krueger and only 37.9% against Tagger. If Potapova gets into second serve points early and consistently, she has the tools to turn that isolated second set slip against Tagger into a full match pattern rather than a one set blip.
Her results this week also show she can grind out an ugly three setter, which is exactly the kind of match state she would need to create here. It is a real path, just a path that requires her to sustain something Anisimova has only shown for one set out of five so far.
The two have met once before, a clay qualifying match Anisimova won in May 2019 in Rome. That result is more than seven years old and on a different surface, so it tells us almost nothing about Wednesday and carries no real weight in either direction.
Why this stays a PASS
T Money's card has a hard price ceiling, and -455 sits nowhere near it. Even with a real statistical edge toward Anisimova, a price this heavy does not leave enough room for the number to pay for itself over time. That is a math problem, not a doubt about the pick itself.
So the read stands: Anisimova is the better player on the court this week, backed by cleaner serve numbers, a real return edge, and a lighter workload. But the market has already priced that gap in and then some, which is exactly why this is a PASS and not a play.
The verdict
Anisimova vs Potapova goes off at 11:00 AM ET on September 4. T Money's fundamentals favor Anisimova, but at -455 the price offers no value, so this is an official PASS, no side staked and no unit attached.