Tennis Betting Advice - February 2021
Katie's got a chance at 5/1...
Monday 1st February 2021
In your Ones to Watch email today:
All of a sudden, it’s the feast after the famine. After a quiet start to the year, the tennis gets going with force this week…
It’s all eyes on Melbourne Park, with a total of six different events taking place at the Australian Open venue. Before the real thing starts next Sunday night.
This week’s events are:
ATP Cup – team event
ATP 250 – Great Ocean Road Open
ATP 250 – Murray River Open
WTA 500 – Gippsland Trophy
WTA 500 – Yarra Valley Classic
WTA 500 – Grampians Trophy
The Grampians Trophy starts on Tuesday night ‘our time,’ and is specifically for the women that had to go into ‘hard quarantine’ with no practise time on court. We’ll look at the draw and the Outright Winner prices tomorrow. I’ve got a couple of angles in my head.
I’m not a big fan of team and group tennis from a betting perspective. It’s just not the straight-up, knockout style of play that tennis is built around. The ATP Cup has plenty of big names though, and should provide some crowd-pleasing entertainment.
So far in these Melbourne tournaments, our Outright Winner book contains three Each Way selections:
In the Gippsland Trophy, 16/1 Elise Mertens plays her first match tonight. Scheduled for 11.30pm UK time, and live on Amazon Prime Video, with live streaming on bookie websites.
At the Great Ocean Road Open, 22/1 Kevin Anderson and 150/1 Kwon Soon-woo both won their 1st round matches this morning.
Kwon Soon-woo needed a final-set tiebreak to come through his match, 6-3, 6-7, 7-6.
Anderson was one of the most impressive winners of the day, beating Feliciano Lopez 6-4, 7-5. Big Kev won all of his service games, and rained down 17 aces.
Unibet now make Anderson just 6/1 to go all the way this week. Bet365 are now 14/1, with Kwon Soon-woo at 100/1.
I’ve got a couple of thoughts on the Yarra Valley Classic and Murray River Open, too. The players and match-ups I’m interested in take to the court in the early hours of Wednesday morning, so I’ll fill you in tomorrow with how the markets are looking.
The Murray River Open headline-grabber tonight is likely to be Nick Kyrgios. The outspoken Aussie is making his first tournament appearance in 11 months. He’s in as one of the 7/1 favourites this week.
If you’re a long-time reader then you’ll know I like Kyrgios – but never at short prices like that. Let’s see ‘which Nick’ turns up this week.
Katie’s got a chance at 5/1…
This season you & I will also be paying plenty of attention to the Match Winner markets. Especially when there’s a tasty price and some underdog potential…
A match that I like for that angle tonight is Katie Boulter to beat Coco Gauff at 5/1.
Coco Gauff v Katie Boulter
I watched Boulter’s 1st round match on Sunday night. The Brit was playing her first match on the WTA Tour since Acapulco last February. Katie was a 6/4 (2.5) underdog against Anna Kalinskaya, but ran out a comfortable 6-1, 6-3 winner – and didn’t lose her serve once (always of note on the women’s tour).
After a lot of time off court with injuries (hence the current ranking of No.371), and of course the global pandemic, the 24-year-old looked raring to go. It was all positive energy and good vibes, as has been Boulter’s aura in online interviews and social media posts during her recent hotel-room quarantine.
Coco Gauff is on our Ones to Watch in 2021 list, and the 16-year-old needs little introduction. As noted in that report though, the young American has an Achilles’ Heel in her game right now, and that’s too many double faults…
That was in evidence again in her 1st round match last night, with Gauff serving eight double faults. Just scraping through a match that she was priced at short odds-on of 2/5 (1.4) to win. With a two-hours & 47-minutes score-line of 6-3, 6-7, 7-6.
Yes, you could argue that that match was a the ‘pipe-opener’ that Coco needed. After all, everyone’s been away from competitive action for some time.
But I think Boulter is being underrated at odds of 5/1+ (6.0+) today. She can match Gauff for power in the rallies, could well prove more reliable on her own serve, and can bring some confidence to the court, too.
Ones to Watch:
WTA Gippsland Trophy, Melbourne
Match Winner
The match is scheduled for overnight, around 1am UK time. If you’re up, you can watch it on Amazon Prime Video, or on bookie websites.
I’ll be back tomorrow with more from Melbourne.
Enjoy the tennis…
Best wishes,
Tom Wilson