Tennis Betting Advice - February 2021
Australian Open: Day 10 - Friendly rivalries in the Quarter Finals...
Tuesday 16th February 2021
In your Ones to Watch email today:
Welcome to Day 10 of your Ones to Watch Australian Open daily service…
We’ve got three players in quarter finals this evening…
At the outsider odds that we go for in Ones to Watch, that’s an achievement in itself.
The bookies don’t pay out on good runs for your money though. So let’s see if one or more of our ladies can make it through to the semi finals, and keep the excitement going…
At the WTA Phillip Island Trophy event being held here in Melbourne this week, we’re on two players:
Rebecca Peterson was flagged up at top prices of 66/1 and 50/1 on Saturday.
And Marie Bouzkova at 33/1 and 25/1.
Heading into tonight’s quarter finals, Peterson is now a general 10/1 chance to go all the way, and Bouzkova is down to 7/1.
That’s a big tick in the box for us then, in terms of snagging a couple of large prices. You could well argue that both Peterson and Bouzkova have already proved themselves to be value selections. Now we wait to see if they can push further…
Peterson is the match-day underdog against Danielle Collins. The head-to-head is 1-1.
The bookies have Bouzkova as the favourite to beat Jil Belen Teichmann. This will be their first meeting.
Friendly rivalries...
At the main event at Melbourne Park, the Australian Open quarter finals wrap up overnight and on Wednesday morning, with these four matches taking place:
Ashleigh Barty v Karolina Muchova
Jennifer Brady v Jessica Pegula
Andrey Rublev v Daniil Medvedev
Stefanos Tsitsipas v Rafael Nadal
The day-one Outright Winner prices for those names included Rublev at 22/1, Tsitsipas 16/1, Brady 33/1, Muchova 100/1, and Pegula at 500/1. With Barty, Nadal, and Medvedev all in with the favourites at single-figure odds.
The two highlighted matches for me there are Brady v Pegula, and Rublev v Medvedev. The former is an all-American women’s clash; the latter an all-Russian men’s encounter.
And in both cases, the players in question know each other very well…
Jennifer Brady v Jessica Pegula
Pegula is our player of interest, carrying Ones to Watch hopes at this particular tournament. We got on Jessica at 100/1, after she caught the eye early in week one, blazing through the first two rounds with a couple of impressive, quickfire 2-0 wins. She’s now 25/1 to go all the way.
Opponent Brady is the favourite to progress tonight (now 10/1 for the title), and the one that everyone’s talking about in this American match-up.
Brady was in my pre-season, Ones to Watch in 2021 report at the start of the year. We know she’s good, and on the up. But we can’t back them all. Although Ones to Watch member David C is in great shape here at the Aussie Open, emailing in to let me know he’s on Brady at 40/1, as well as Muchova at 100/1. Great stuff.
As for tonight’s big quarter final between these two, I’m sticking to my guns with the underdog, Pegula…
As I say, these two know each other very well. Thanks to the college system, American tennis is stacked with 20-something players that progress onto the main WTA & ATP Tours. Bringing with them the mixture of individual winning attitude and collective spirit, that goes with playing team tennis and representing an institution in a highly competitive environment.
I remember British player Laura Robson saying that she always thinks of her age-group contemporaries in tennis specifically by the year that they were born (as opposed to school years, for example). The year of birth is used to categorise. And in that hierarchy, the 26-year-old Pegula is a 1994 player. With the 25-year-old Brady a 1995-er…
What I’m getting at here is an element of mental edge that’s hard to tangibly describe. So I’ll offer this evidence up instead: Pegula has won both of their previous meetings. One was in a one-set shootout at a ‘Team Tennis’ event last July. The other was at the Western & Southern held in New York in August, where Pegula prevailed 7-6, 6-4.
Now, you could point out that Brady came into that event having just won her first career WTA title in Lexington, so may have been a little below par. And after the Western & Southern Open, went on to reach the US Open semi finals. And you’d be right. But I still reckon there’s something in this head-to-head, some kind of respect or pulling-rank, that may make it particularly tough for Brady to bring her fiercest game-face to court tonight.
In the last round, after winning her match, Pegula scribbled on the TV camera lens - as is customary - with a ‘See you in the next round’ message, addressed to ‘Jen B.’ Brady responded with an acknowledgement later that day when completing her match.
That’s all fun and smiles. But they can’t both win. If you want to protect your stakes, back Brady. I’m rooting firmly for Pegula.
Andrey Rublev v Daniil Medvedev
The age-group deference is even more pronounced for this Russian men’s match-up.
The 25-year-old Medvedev owns the head-to-head v 23-year-old Rublev, 4-0. That pro-career record is made up of two 2-0 wins on the ATP Tour, a 2-0 on the lower-tier Challenger Tour, and a 3-0 win at the US Open last year.
Now, Rublev did have set points in that last meeting, and two sets ended 7-6 in a tiebreak. But he couldn’t take any of them, and looked a bit of a broken man by the end.
Both are still young, and these guys will likely meet many times in the years to come. For now though, and considering the way Rublev talks of having ‘looked up’ to Daniil ever since they were kids, it’s hard to overstate the importance of the older guy’s influence here…
Back to that year-group ranking, Medvedev is a 1996 man, with Rublev 1995. Medvedev feels a lot older and wiser, though. He has so far enjoyed greater success at Grand Slam level, reaching the semi final at the US Open 2019, then the final in 2020. Andrey is making strides; this is his third consecutive Grand Slam quarter final. He’s yet to win one though.
With all that in mind, and especially the head-to-head record, I can’t look beyond odds of 2/1 (3.0) for the 3-0 Set Betting score for Medvedev.
Ones to Watch:
Set Betting
I’ll be back at 5pm tomorrow with your Day 11 email, ready for the start of the semi finals.
P.S
If you have any questions or want to drop me a line, I’m on hand via email. You can message me at: tom.wilson@oxonpress.co.uk
Enjoy the tennis…
Best wishes,
Tom Wilson