OTW Extra Email Archive - January 2017
One to Watch this week - an 11/1 shot in Taiwan...
Monday 30th January 2017
In your Ones to Watch email today:
Big prices continue to catch the eye...
The Australian Open came to an exciting end on Sunday, with Roger Federer beating Rafael Nadal in 5 sets in an entertaining Men’s Final...
My tennis mantra for 2017 is that we’ll see a ‘changing of the guard’ this season. The Aussie Open provided a mixed bag with regards to that theme, considering long-standing legends Federer, Nadal, Venus and Serena made up the final four...
But the key point here is the shortest prices players in the Outright Winner market (Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray) didn’t win...
Giving plenty of scope for backing players at bigger prices from further down the betting lists...
Australian Open 2017:
Men’s Winner: R.Federer – pre-tournament price 22/1
Men’s Runner-up: R.Nadal – 16/1
Women’s Winner: S.Williams – 3/1
Women’s Runner-up: V.Williams 100/1
And if we look back one round to the semi finals, some huge prices were floating around at the business end of the competition...
S.Wawrinka – 12/1
G.Dimitrov – 40/1
C.Vandeweghe – 150/1
M.Lucic-Baroni – 1,000/1
Dimitrov came through to win Djokovic’s Quarter of the Men’s draw.
And in the top half of the Women’s draw, where the No.1 seed and reigning champion Angelique Kerber failed to make it past the first week, 100/1 Venus Williams and 150/1 Coco Vandweghe came through to meet in the semi finals.
Last season saw players reach Grand Slam finals at odds of 50/1, 10/1, 16/1, 25/1, 14/1, 25/1, 10/1 and 33/1. That’s half of the 16 finalists across the Men’s & Women’s Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon and US Open – at double-figure pre-tournament prices.
We can now add to that ‘outside bet’ tally the 22/1, 16/1 and 100/1 prices from the four finalist spots in the first Grand Slam of 2017...
In fact, for the first time in Australian Open history, all of the Men’s & Women’s top seeds and reigning champions were knocked out before the quarter finals (Murray, Djokovic and Anglique Kerber).
We have every reason to expect plenty more shocks, surprises, upsets – and big prices – throughout the season...
One to Watch – an 11/1 shot in Taiwan this week...
Event: WTA Taipei, Taiwan
Surface: Hard court
The normal weekly tennis resumes this week with two Women’s events (the Men’s ATP Tour is back next week).
The indoor event in St Petersburg is the higher-grade event and as such has attracted the biggest names. Looking at the draw though, that one looks very tough to call this week.
I’m more interested in the tournament taking place in Taipei City...
Katerina Siniakova is my pick at odds of 10/1+. The 20-year-old Czech player hit a career-best ranking inside the Top 40 in January after winning her first WTA title, in Shenzhen.
That comes after a breakthrough 2016 season where Siniakova reached two WTA finals, one on either side of the US Open...
She could repeat that form trick here – having won that Shenzhen title just before the Australian Open…
Siniakova is in the bottom half of the Taipei draw here and as such avoids the top two in the betting, Elina Svitolina (12/5 favourite) and Jelena Jankovic (8/1 second favourite).
She has a promising run through the draw, with a 1st Round win already under her belt, and the unreliable Sam Stosur a potential opponent in her section (the veteran Stosur has accepted a Wild Card to play here).
The young and improving Siniakova is a player we could be hearing a lot more about in the future – and she looks well-placed to put together another good tournament run this week.
One to Watch:
Outright Winner betting – Each Way terms 1/2 odds 1-2 places
Play continues in Taiwan at 4am Tuesday, UK time.
A busy month coming up on the Tours...
There are a stack of tournaments coming up in February. Check out our newly-updated Calendar page.
As well as listing the month’s upcoming tournaments, after each event I also update the calendar list with the settled Outright Winner and Runner-up prices from each tournament. So we can keep track of the favourites and underdogs delivering on the tours, and the odds on offer.
P.S
In case you missed it…
Last but not least, if you missed our first look at this summer’s Wimbledon betting, you can read about my first, early 20/1+ One to Watch selection in last week’s email here.
I’ll be back next week with my pick of the value on the ATP Tour.
Best wishes,
