The ATP Beijing Men’s Singles tournament continues into the round of 16 on Friday as hometown underdog Yunchaokete Bu takes on Novak Djokovic. Scheduled for 8:30 AM ET at the Capital Group Diamond, this clash pits a massive longshot against an established global favorite.

For my money, the single most important question for bettors is whether Bu can bridge the colossal gap in class. Djokovic sits comfortably at No. 11 in the ATP singles rankings with 2,980 points. Bu ranks No. 104 with just 602 points. Betting action hinges entirely on whether Bu has the offensive firepower to hit through the heavy favorite, or if the Serbian will simply absorb his pace and force unforced errors.

Below I’ll break down this match and offer my betting advice. Keep reading for the Djokovic vs Bu prediction, best bets and odds for the Beijing Open.

Bu and Djokovic have never met on the ATP Tour, leaving me with no direct head-to-head data to evaluate.

Without a historical baseline, my betting thesis leans on the massive disparity in ranking points, tour-level pedigree, and available value in the prop markets.

Because a straight moneyline wager on Djokovic requires eating heavy juice, the exact-score market offers a more realistic angle. The latest Tennis Abstract Elo ratings make the favorite’s edge much clearer than the ATP rankings alone: Djokovic rates 2,047.2 overall and 1,997.1 on hard courts, compared with Bu at 1,710.1 overall and 1,668.8 on hard courts. That hard-court gap of roughly 328 points corresponds to an implied best-of-three win probability in the mid-80% range under the Elo framework.

The 52-week Tennis Ratio comparison also points to Djokovic in the areas most likely to decide this matchup. He has won 67.0% of his first-serve points and 54.3% of his second-serve points, versus Bu’s 52.8% on second serve, while Djokovic has converted 28.2% of opponents’ first-serve points compared with Bu’s 26.1%. The overall match-efficiency split—2.673 for Djokovic against 1.585 for Bu—reinforces the class gap, even though Bu’s stronger return-games-won rate (21.3% to 19.7%) warns against treating this as an automatic blowout.

Bu’s recent run has been credible, including a straight-set win over Michael Zheng and a three-set victory over Jan-Lennard Struff, but Djokovic just handled Nuno Borges in straight sets in this same Beijing event. The matchup data and hard-court Elo support Djokovic’s ability to absorb Bu’s best stretches and create the decisive breaks. At -108 via Kalshi, I still prefer Djokovic to win in straight sets, with the caveat that Bu’s return numbers make a tight opening set plausible. Claim the Kalshi promo code to tail this pick.