Tennis Betting Advice - August 2020
Teenager up for the fight at 8/1...
Thursday 6th August 2020
In your Ones to Watch email today:
Two more seeds tumble in Palermo…
Fiona Ferro produced another good display in Palermo yesterday. The 23-year-old beat Ekaterina Alexandrova 7-5, 6-2 to book a place in the quarter finals.
Ferro showed impressive steeliness in what was a tight first set. Fiona pushed five of her opponent’s six service games to deuce, eventually getting the break of serve right at the end of the set. From then on, our player was in charge.
A 25/1 pick from the start of the week, Ferro is now 6/1 in the Outright Winner market.
Our other tournament selection Anett Kontaveit (12/1) plays in the 2nd round today…
The Estonian is priced as the 4/9 (1.44) match favourite to beat Laura Siegemund. Those match-day odds are perhaps a little short on our player. But Kontaveit certainly has the ability to go deep this week.
In the Outright betting, Kontaveit is now the tournament second-favourite at 5/1 at best. Anett is one of just three seeded players left in the competition. Two more were sent packing on Wednesday, with 8th seed Alexandrova and 6th seed Donna Vekic the latest names to fall.
We have price on our side, with our 25/1 and 12/1 picks now trading at 6/1 and 5/1 respectively. Things heat up now with places at stake in the quarter finals and beyond.
Errani bounces back…
Things went well for three out of four sets for my match picks yesterday…
Aliaksandra Sasnovich was almost faultless in a very convincing 6-0, 6-2 win over Jasmine Paolini.
And in the next match on court after that, our other straight-sets pick Kristyna Pliskova got off to a good start, winning the first set 6-3 against Sara Errani…
Going into the second set, we effectively then had Evens for Pliskova to win and land our Match Winner double, as well as 3/1 for the Czech to complete our 2-0 Set Betting combo, after Sasnovich had done her bit in both markets earlier on.
But things unravelled after that. Italian veteran Sara Errani fought back to win 3-6, 6-4, 6-3. The 33-year-old, who was 50/1 at the start of the week, moves onto the quarter finals, where she will face a player 10 years her junior, our pick Fiona Ferro.
Teenager up for the fight at 9/2…
Errani has had three-set battles in both her 1st and 2nd round matches this week. Another player with long matches on her recent form-sheet is teenager Kaja Juvan…
The 19-year-old Slovenian came through qualifying to reach the Palermo main draw. So far in total here, Juvan has played four matches, and three of them have seen her prevail 2-1, coming from a set down to win on three occasions.
Today’s opponent Camila Giorgi is one I file under ‘dodgy favourite.’ The Italian plays an all-or-nothing game of go-for-broke tennis. When it all fires well, she looks mighty impressive. But the usual wobbles often return – double faults, unforced errors, and body language that suggests the pressure is getting to her.
As the higher-ranked and more experienced player, Giorgi is the favourite in this match. But I really wouldn’t be rushing to take odds of 4/6 (1.67) for the 28-year-old to get the job done today.
Juvan has shown plenty of fighting spirit this week, including a 1-6, 7-6, 6-4 comeback win over 2019 French Open finalist, Marketa Vondrousova.
Going back to pre-lockdown, five of Juvan’s last seven matches have gone the distance to three sets – and she won four of them…
The right-handed youngster has enough in her game to take on the fast-hitting approach of Giorgi this evening. Juvan is 6/5 (2.2) to win. And 9/2 (5.5) to win 2-1 in the Set Betting market (Bet365, BetVictor).
For the most juice in the price, the speculative option that catches my eye is 8/1 (9.0) for Juvan ‘To Win from Behind.’ That’s a bet on the teenager losing the first set, and coming back to win the match.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see Giorgi make a fast start, followed by Juvan digging in to make a match of it…
WTA Palermo today:
6pm+ UK time
Live on Amazon Prime Video
Camili Giorgi v Kaja Juvan
Note: As you can see from that price list, different bookies give this market different names.
I’ll be back with more from Palermo on Friday morning.
Enjoy the tennis…
Best wishes,
Tom Wilson