Tennis Betting Advice - April 2021
Teenage dreams at 99/1...
Thursday 15th April 2021
In your Ones to Watch email today:
The teenagers are doing well in Charleston this week…
We’re on 18-year-old Clara Tauson at 12/1, and she’s through to the quarter finals (now 5/1).
Three other teenagers still in the draw: 19-year-old Maria Camila Osorio Serrano, who won a maiden WTA title in Bogota last week. Another 19-year-old, Emma Navarro of the USA. And the youngest of them all, 15-year-old Linda Fruhvirtova…
If you were onboard during lockdown last summer, then you might remember I flagged up the Fruhvirtova sisters as ones to watch for the future. You can read that article here.
Brenda Fruhvirtova is now 14 years old.
Linda is still 15, turning 16 on the 1st May. She’s entered into the Junior versions of French Open and Wimbledon for this season. But this week, Linda is playing with the Seniors on the WTA Tour. A win for the Czech youngster today will take her through to a first quarter final at this level…
Chances in Charleston…
The reason I’m mentioning the teenagers today is because I believe there’s a chance opening up for one of them. As we observed at the start of the week, this new WTA 250 event in Charleston does not boast the strongest of fields in terms of rankings or women with tournament-winning experience.
Osorio Serrano might be getting a bit tired after her dream run at home in Colombia last week. The 19-year-old made it through the 1st round in a three-setter. I wouldn’t be surprised to see her find a way through in similarly grinding circumstances against Christina McHale today. The winner of that match plays our pick Tauson, who will have an extra day’s rest on her side before that quarter-final encounter. From 22/1 at the start of the week, Osorio Serrano is now 14/1 and 12/1.
The other section of this bottom half of the Charleston draw looks genuinely wide open. The winner of Emma Navarro and Linda Fruhvirtova will go on to face either the 31-year-old Madison Brengle, or 25-year-old Astra Sharma. I very much want to be on the side of youth here…
At just 15, Fruhvirtova is the one who will get the most headlines if she reaches the quarter finals or beyond this week. But I also think the 19-year-old Navarro is being a bit overlooked here…
Charleston is Navarro’s home town. At last week’s more prestigious WTA 500-grade event here, Emma scored a 9/2 (5.5) underdog win in the 1st round. And there was no shame in losing 6-4, 6-4 to Veronika Kudermetova, who went on to win the whole tournament without dropping a set.
For today’s match, the bookies make them hard to split, with Fruhvirtova slightly ahead in the betting at 4/5 (1.8), and Navarro at Evens (2.0).
As I’ve said, I fancy whoever wins this to have a very good chance of beating Brengle or Sharma in the quarter finals. And for me, that makes the Outright Winner prices worthy of attention…
33/1 and 99/1 could prove value here…
At the start of the week, Fruhvirtova was 50/1, and the bookies were going 1/2 odds Each Way for reaching the final. Linda is now 33/1, and those place terms have been trimmed to 1/3rd odds. There’s a case that that new price is still value. If we work backwards through the draw, the 15-year-old was 5/1 to beat Alize Cornet in the last round. Applied to the starting price of 50/1, that would drop Linda’s outright quote down to single figures.
Navarro was 150/1 pre-tournament. She’s available at 99/1 and 80/1 today. Again, if we apply the prices as in the above example, then by now Navarro’s odds would be below 50/1.
You could argue that both Fruhvirtova and Navarro only got through the last round because both of their opponents retired injured during the match. But I still believe that today’s revised Outright Winner prices hold value. That being the case, I’m taking both, in the belief that we’ve got a genuine chance of finding a semi-finalist or better here.
Ones to Watch
WTA Charleston – MUSC Health Women’s Open
Outright Winner – Each Way
Each Way terms: 1/3 odds 1-2 places
Play starts from 6pm. Bookmakers take down their Outright Winner markets during the day’s matches.
P.S
At the men’s ATP Masters 1000 event in Monte Carlo, we’ve got 100/1 Casper Ruud still in the running as a big-price outsider. He plays Pablo Carreno-Busta this afternoon, for a place in the quarter finals. The bookies make it 50-50.
Enjoy the tennis…
Best wishes,
Tom Wilson