Tennis Betting Advice - June 2018
French Open: Bets of the Day – Keys lurking at 66/1…
Friday 1st June 2018
In your Ones to Watch email today:
French Open – Bets of the Day
Good morning and welcome to Day 6 of your French Open 2018 coverage…
Play starts from 10am UK time.
Sam strikes…
The 34-year-old Sam Stosur did good for us yesterday, stopping Anastasia Pavyluchenkova’s winning streak with a straight sets 6-2, 7-6 victory.
That underdog win meant we were break even for the day, after our latest Match Winner acca (@ 22/1) missed out by two, with eight out of 10 correct selections.
Stosur, a former finalist at Roland Garros, goes onto face 2016 French Open winner and one of the 2018 tournament favourites Garbine Muguruza on Saturday. That should be on one of the big courts and the Australian veteran could prove an interesting outsider there. We’ll take a closer look at the formbook & prices for that one tomorrow.
Mertens moves on…
On the Outright Winner front, the three Each Way picks that we’ve placed so far this week are all through to the 3rd Round. In tournament-winning talk, that’s ‘two matches down, five to go’…
Elise Mertens (50/1) played her 2nd Round match yesterday and to be honest made pretty hard work of what was eventually a routine-looking score-line, taking out Heather Watson, 6-3, 6-4. They say if you can win when not playing well then that’s a good sign, so we will take that and move on. Mertens will face Daria Gavrilova in the 3rd Round, a player that Elise has beaten three times in a row, including here in Paris last year.
Petra Kvitova (14/1) and David Goffin (66/1) are both a day ahead of Mertens and play their 3rd Round matches today.
The bookies make both Kvitova and Goffin short-price favourites to win today but our players will need to be on their game. Kvitova has needed to come from a set down to beat Anett Kontaveit in their two previous meetings, and none of the three career clashes to date between Goffin and Gael Monfils have been settled in straight sets.
From our pre-tournament French Open 2018 – Ones to Watch list – containing a handful of big-price outsiders around the 100/1 mark – Kyle Edmund, Pablo Carreno Busta, Camila Giorgi, Katerina Siniakova and Mertens are all still standing as we head into Day 6
There are a total of 16 matches on the 3rd Round schedule today, eight in the Men’s and eight in the Women’s. We’ll be back on the match betting tomorrow with 16 more 3rd Round matches on Saturday’s order of play. For today there are two huge prices to draw your attention to in the Outright Winner market…
Outright Winner picks – Keys lurking at 66/1…
Four of the top six places in the Women’s Outright Winner market are occupied by players in the top half of the draw (Simona Halep, Garbine Muguruza, Maria Sharapova, Serena Williams).
The two from the opposite side are our pick Kvitova, and tournament joint-favourite Elina Svitolina who is just 4/1 as a I write, despite never having been past the quarter finals.
In that bottom half of the Women’s draw we’re already on Kvitova @ 14/1 or 12/1, and today there are two players at big prices that it could pay to add to our selections.
First a note on one other player in that half…
Kvitova is in the 4th Quarter, where Daria Kasatkina (16/1) is going well with two 2-0 wins so far. As I hinted the other day, Kasatkina potentially reaching that quarter final is likely to come down to beating World No.2 Caroline Wozniacki (20/1). We got 80/1 on Kasatkina at Indian Wells earlier this year (giving a 40/1 Each Way payout); I’ve been a little reluctant to back the Russian at a less exciting price in this Grand Slam event. With our 14/1 pick Kvitova in this quarter I’m happy to look elsewhere for now, so we don’t overload on one narrow section of the draw at this price range. Kasatkina is likely to feature in our match betting going forwards though.
Moving onto the big prices and two players to back today…
In the 3rd Quarter, where Svitolina is the talking horse, our Ones to Watch player Katerina Siniakova has seen the draw open up for her somewhat. After beating former World No.1 Victoria Azarenka with an impressive 2-0 win in the 1st Round, Siniakova then got past 2018 French Open champion Jelena’s Ostapenko’s conqueror, Kateryna Kozlova. She faces her fellow Czech, Barbora Stycova in what could be a significant match today, as whoever wins that one will likely be favourite in the next round where a place in the quarter finals would then be up for grabs.
My take right now is that if you’re on Siniakova at some of the big prices flagged up in your pre-tournament report (100/1 and 150/1, with a couple of bookies offering 700/1 Win Only a couple of weeks back), then you’re already sitting on a nice price. If not, get on at 80/1 in general today – or better still, the massive 150/1 available with Boylesports and Betfred.
Also in the 3rd Quarter, our finalist from last year’s US Open, Madison Keys is lurking at 66/1. The American can be up and down, but is absolutely sensational when on song and has the power to take out anyone. She possess the tools the take out the big names, and has a winning head-to-head v Svitolina, although they are yet to meet on clay.
Today, Keys faces another talented youngster in Naomi Osaka. This is an interesting one as the bookies make Keys the slight favourite to win the match but have Osaka ahead of her in the Outright Winner betting, with the Japanese player 40/1. Keys has a 2-0 record v Osaka and a better overall record on clay. The 23-year-old American has blasted her way through the first two rounds this week. At 66/1 and 50/1, Keys looks value here.
With both Siniakova and Keys involved in close-looking matches today, these big Outright Winners prices are likely to be slashed if either of them get through. Now is the time to back them.
Women’s Outright Winner:
BET: Katerina Siniakova @ 150/1 Each Way
BOOKIES: 150/1 (151.00) Boylesports, Betfred, 80/1 (81.00) Bet365, BetVictor, Betway, Coral, William Hill
BET: Madison Keys @ 66/1 Each Way
BOOKIES: 66/1 (67.00) Bet365, Marathonbet, 50/1 (51.00) BetVictor, Boylesports, Betway, Coral, William Hill
In summary…
Here are today’s Bets of the Day (see above for full details):
Women’s Outright Winner – Siniakova @ 150/1 Each Way
Women’s Outright Winner – Keys @ 66/1 Each Way
I’ll be back at 8am tomorrow with your French Open Bets of the Day for Saturday.
Enjoy the tennis…
Best wishes,
Tom Wilson