Unexpectedly for a top player, Daniil Medvedev is going through the toughest summer stretch of his career: the slide began at Roland Garros and stretched across the calendar to the point that he has lost seven of his last 15 matches. Yet bookmakers have barely adjusted their models: Medvedev remains the default favorite, and the odds on his opponents stay elevated. For value hunters, this is a rare and resounding opportunity.
Crisis in Numbers: A Losing Run Despite Favorite Status
The symptoms are simple: defeats have come more often than usual, but the market still carries Daniil as a first-tier player. Including the Paris Slam, he was the underdog only once — before the match in Germany against Alexander Zverev. The result: seven losses in 15 matches, each paid at big prices. This kind of variance creates value spots against a marquee name.
The Market Is Stubborn: Why Lines Don’t Recalibrate
Bookmakers are conservative about short slumps among the elite. Their models have plenty of inertia: ratings, rally length, return quality — none of that “resets” after a single downturn. The Reilly Opelka case is telling: even after the first summer stumble, the quotes before Medvedev’s next outing barely moved — the market expected a reversion to the mean.
How Much You Could Have Made: A Rough Value Estimate
“Against Medvedev” bets this summer shaped up as a strategy with strong upside. With a flat-stake model (1 unit on the opponent in every match), the bankroll could theoretically have grown to about x18 — without aggressive bankroll management. The logic is simple: a run of high-priced upsets covers a string of minuses and leaves a solid profit over distance. Of course, this is a hindsight calculation, not a guarantee of future returns, but the numbers are striking.
Key Upsets and Odds: Where the Value Hid
- Benjamin Bonzi, Wimbledon — odds 8.80, implied probability ≈ 11.36% (before margin). One of the loudest upsets of the year.
- Learner Tien, Australian Open — 5.50, implied ≈ 18.18%. Losing to a teenager at that price shocked the models.
- Jaume Munar, Miami — 5.30, implied ≈ 18.87%. On hard courts in Miami, this was especially unexpected.
- Adam Walton — bookmakers priced his chance at 15–20%, corresponding to roughly 5.00–6.50 in odds (implied from 20.00% down to 15.38%). And even this wasn’t a top-3 shock upset for Medvedev this season.
Outlook: The Favorite’s Aura Persists
Despite the summer drama, the overall rating remains high. Medvedev is the sixth favorite for the US Open: only Jannik Sinner, Carlos Alcaraz, Novak Djokovic, Alexander Zverev, and Jack Draper are ahead. Notably, Daniil’s current price is shorter than Taylor Fritz’s, last year’s finalist. In the 2025 season he has played 43 matches and was the underdog only four times — in the other 39 the market kept believing in his class. Medvedev’s title chance at a major is estimated to be roughly five times higher than Karen Khachanov’s — another marker of how slowly elite lines relearn.
How to Work With the “Against the Favorite” Strategy
The key is discipline. The “bet against Medvedev everywhere and always” approach is risky: the market adapts, and downswings are inevitable. A smarter path is to pick spots by a cluster of factors — surface profile, trends on points behind the second serve, vulnerability on return, and scheduling fatigue. Bankroll management — flat staking or fractional Kelly — is critical, because upsets arrive unevenly and variance at big prices is significant.
Bottom Line. The summer turned Medvedev matchups into a rare source of value: a run of upsets alongside the market’s stubborn belief in the status quo produced historically generous prices on underdogs. But the strategy works off future lines, not the past: track the context and check whether the “fat” in the odds has thinned as the favorite’s form rebounds.
