Tennis Betting Advice - January 2019
Australian Open: Bets of the Day – taking on Konta…
Monday 14th January 2019
Australian Open - Bets of the Day
In your Ones to Watch email today:
Statements of intent…
We expected Aryna Sabalenka to open with a statement of intent last night. And that’s exactly what she did, whipping through her 1st Round match in just over an hour, including a 6-1 score in the first set.
Backed at a top price 12/1, the powerful 20-year-old from Belarus is one of four tournament Outright Winner picks that featured in our Day One email last night. You can view the full write-up here.
Elsewhere, Karen Khachanov (28/1) opened up with a three-sets-to-one win, which might be the pipe-opener the 22-year-old Russian needs to get his big-hitting game fired up for a significant run here in Melbourne.
Our two other picks Borna Coric (50/1) and Elise Mertens (100/1) play in the 1st Round tonight.
Those Each Way prices set down a marker for what we’re doing here in Australia. We’re going after the big odds and looking to take on the favourites wherever we can.
Tall Men + Big Serves = Tiebreak Tennis…
The overnight (UK time) Day Two schedule contains two matches in particular where I strongly fancy the chances of the underdogs in the betting. See below for those two Match Winner picks.
One area where it’s hard to pinpoint the right market this evening is in the Men’s matches involving a couple of very tall, very big servers…
Last night the all-American clash between the 6’11” Reilly Opelka and 6’10” John Isner saw a total of 87 Aces, and a tiebreaker dominated match score-line of 7-6, 6-7, 7-6, 7-6 to the lower-ranked Opelka.
Tuesday morning’s eagerly anticipated 1st Round encounter between 6’4” Aussie ‘wild-child’ Nick Kyrgios and 6’5” Canadian ‘serve-bot’ Milos Raonic could see an equally high number of Aces, and a similar pattern of 7-6 set scores – although don’t ask me in what order & to which player those tiebreaks will go.
There’s also a 1st Round match between the veteran 39-year-old, 6’11” Ivo Karlovic and young 21-year-old 6’5” challenger Hubert Hurkacz. Expect more of the same there. Twelve of Karlovic’s last 16 matches have needed a tiebreak to decide the first set.
The problem with those matches is the bookies are taking no chances whatsoever in the Tiebreak in the Match or 1st Set Tiebreak markets, with both options odds-on in both cases. For the Karlovic match, the Tiebreak in the Match is as short as 1/100 (1.01)!
Total Games lines of 40+ games (again, at odds-on prices) won’t even provide a winning payout in the event of a straight-sets 7-6, 7-6, 7-6 win (39 games). And no bookies appear to be offering match Total Aces markets at this early stage in the tournament.
If you’re so inclined, something like Skybet’s ‘Tiebreak Triumph’ could be your best route to landing a tasty price. Centred on a straight-sets, 3-0 win for each player option, this Skybet market is offering 22/1 Raonic or 28/1 Kyrgios and 25/1 Karlovic or 33/1 Hurkacz ‘to win every set 7-6.’
Two Match Winner picks…
We’ll play things a lot simpler for our Bets of the Day picks, with two straight-up Match Winner selections.
In the Women’s 1st Round, I can’t have Johanna Konta as the favourite to beat Ajla Tomljanovic.
In September last year we backed Tomljanovic to win WTA Hiroshima. She got to the quarter finals there, only to go on to the WTA Seoul final the very next week as a 20/1 outsider. She can get a payout for us this time.
On recent form and fitness – two separate factors – Konta comes up short in both departments. The Brit withdrew from Sydney this month. And before that she lost in the 2nd Round in Brisbane – to none other than Tomljanovic.
The Croatian-born Australian player has improved leaps and bounds since recovering from a bad shoulder injury a couple of years back. Ajla has an aggressive game and her confidence levels should be higher than Konta’s here.
Although both players have claims to crowd favour – with the Sydney-born Konta now representing Great Britain – the Court 3 crowd are likely to be lively, with vocal support going to Tomljanovic.
More importantly though, the price and form favours the match underdog.
The Men’s match between Sam Querrey and Pierre-Hugues Herbert also stands out for backing the underdog tonight…
This is another Men’s match-up featuring strong servers with Querrey standing 6’6” and Herbert a more modest 6’2”. These two are both around the Top 50 in the world rankings, but the Frenchman is the younger of the two and on the up, while American Querrey looks to be on a bit of downward arc at the moment.
Herbert has beaten Top 10 player Dominic Thiem on hard courts this season, and reached the ATP Shenzhen final towards the back-end of last year. Querrey has little match-winning form of note in recent times, and looks an unreliable favourite here: he’s never been past the 3rd Round in Melbourne in 13 attempts, and gone out at the first hurdle on five occasions.
At odds-against prices, Herbert can cause a minor upset out on Court 20 tonight.
Both our matches start at Midnight.
Today’s Ones to Watch picks are:
Women’s – Match Winner:
BET: Ajla Tomljanovic to beat Johanna Konta @ 21/20 (2.05)
BOOKIES: 21/20 (2.05) Boylesports, BetVictor, NetBet, 10Bet, Evens (2.00) Bet365, William Hill, Betway
Men’s – Match Winner:
BET: Pierre-Hugues Herbert to beat Sam Querrey @ 13/8
BOOKIES: 13/8 (2.63) Bet365, 6/4 (2.50) William Hill, BetVictor, Boylesports, Betway
I’ll be back by 9pm tomorrow with your Bets of the Day email for Day Three.
Enjoy the tennis…
Best wishes,
Tom Wilson