The second day of action in the Australian Open tennis tournament takes place at Melbourne Park on Tuesday as the first round draws to a close in both singles tournaments. Some big names graced the courts on Monday and plenty more will begin their campaigns on day two.
After a mixed day on Monday which saw two winners and two losers in the match bets along with one outright going out and a couple going through we’re hoping for better on another busy day on Tuesday.
Rod Laver Arena
The US Open finalist Karolina Pliskova gets us underway on the main court. She faces Spain’s Sara Sorribes Tormo before the huge clash of the women’s first round takes place as Belinda Bencic plays Serena Williams. Rafael Nadal begins his latest Grand Slam quest after that when he faces Florian Mayer.
The evening session looks tasty too. Novak Djokovic begins his title defence against Fernando Verdasco who is a former semi-finalist here before the ladies third seed Agnieszka Radwanska takes on Tsvetana Pironkova.
Margaret Court Arena
British eyes will be on this court from the get go as Johanna Konta gets her campaign underway first up when she faces Kirsten Flipkens. They are followed by Milos Raonic and Dustin Brown with the other leading British woman Heather Watson closing the day session when she faces Sam Stosur.
Grigor Dimitrov kicks off the night session when he faces the Australian Christopher O’Connell and then the darling of Australia, Dasha Gavrilova faces Naomi Broady of Great Britain.
Hisense Arena
The next gen start Alexander Zverev is first up on Hisense against Robin Naase before Dominika Cibulkova takes on Denisa Allertova in a tasty looking women’s match. Speaking of tasty Caroline Wozniacki follows them when she plays Arina Rodionova and the day concludes with Omar Jasika taking on David Ferrer.
Best of the Rest
As ever early in a Grand Slam a ground pass is never a bad ticket to have as there are some decent names on show on the lesser courts. Caroline Garcia and David Goffin are on show court 2 while Elena Vesnina, Gael Monfils and Dominic Thiem should draw decent crowds to show court number three.
British number two Kyle Edmund is on show on the outside courts as are French seeds Richard Gasquet and Gilles Simon. Ivo Karlovic, Ekaterina Makarova and Timea Bacsinszky are also in action.
Betting
The draw has thrown up plenty of good betting potential on this second day so I’m going on the attack with a number of bets although some of them are to slightly smaller stakes as the heat is expected to crank up and that isn’t always a good thing.
We get started right from the off on show court three where I believe Lucie Safarova could be a vulnerable favourite. Her injury and confidence issues have been well documented so the last thing she could have done with as she aims to climb the rankings again is a match with a dangerous opponent in Yanina Wickmayer. Wickmayer knows her way around a tennis court and has had some decent results in the last few months. At the prices she’s the one to be on there.
I remember watching Jared Donaldson for the first time at the US Open in 2014 when he lost to Gael Monfils but I left Grandstand thinking he might be one to watch so I wasn’t surprised to see him go well at the US Open last year. He has a favourable first round draw against Rogerio Dutra Silva who appears to hate playing on anything other than clay. Donaldson has shown enough to suggest he can win 3-0 on a surface which suits him better.
Later in the day Gilles Muller goes up against the American Taylor Fritz. Both these men bomb their delivery down at a rate of knots so I’m not expecting much in the way of services breaks. Neither have amazing ground games so I’m expecting the serve to dominate, at least in the early stages. The 15/8 that the first set ends 7-6 is more than good enough in that one.
Heather Watson played well for Britain at the Hopman Cup and although she flatters to deceive at Grand Slam level she goes up against the fast fading Sam Stosur whose record in her own country is nothing to write home about. Given the positive confidence Watson will have built up at the Hopman Cup I think the odds against on her is good enough against an opponent who is under all the pressure, pressure she has failed to handle too many times to trust.
There is a clash between Ivan Dodig and Denis Istomin on court 14 and I like the doubles specialist to come through there. Istomin keeps flirting between main tour and challenger tour without much success whereas now Dodig is going to concentrate on his singles game I fancy he has the talent to deal with the man from Uzbekistan. If Dodig can get ahead of Istomin early the red mist will soon descend and this should be an easy day’s work for the Croatian.
Finally I’m going to get involved in the night session too and the men’s match looks like it has the potential to be closer than the odds suggest. Novak Djokovic met Fernando Verdasco at the semi-final stage in Doha recently and it went three sets which suggests to me the Spaniard can make this a longer match then Djokovic would want. You can get 7/4 on over 3.5 sets and that is attractive enough to me.
Tips
Back Y.Wickmayer to beat L.Safarova for a 3/10 stake at 2.63 with Paddy Power
WON – Back G.Muller vs T.Fritz – First set correct score 7-6 for a 3/10 stake at 2.88 with Paddy Power
Back them here:
Back J.Donaldson to beat R.Dutra Silva 3-0 for a 3/10 stake at 2.38 with William Hill
Back him here:
WON – Back H.Watson to beat S.Stosur for a 4/10 stake at 2.00 with Ladbrokes
Back her here:
Back I.Dodig to beat D.Istomin for a 4/10 stake at 1.91 with Coral
Back N.Djokovic vs F.Verdasco – Over 3.5 sets for a 3/10 stake at 2.75 with Coral
Back them here:
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2017
