The second round of the Australian Open commences on another largely busy day of action on Wednesday when the bigger names look for a place in the last 32 of the opening Grand Slam of the year in Melbourne.
Tuesday was a terrible day for us betting wise but it was a good one for the star names who were on show. They all made it through and most of them progressed with plenty in hand to set up the latter stages nicely. The likes of Rafael Nadal, Caroline Wozniacki, Grigor Dimitrov and Karolina Pliskova are on show again on Wednesday.
Rod Laver Arena
Elina Svitolina will be first up on the main court on Wednesday. She faces a potentially awkward challenge in the Czech player Katerina Siniakova. They are followed by the number two seed Caroline Wozniacki who faces Jana Fett of Croatia. The day session concludes with the one men’s match which sees Rafael Nadal taking on Leonardo Mayer.
As ever there are two matches in the night session. The men’s match sees Grigor Dimitrov on court against Mackenzie McDonald of America. Home favourite Daria Gavrilova is on show again after that. She meets Elise Mertens.
Margaret Court Arena
It is a relatively low key start on the second court when unseeded Australian Olivia Rogowska takes on another unseeded player in Marta Kostyuk. We then have a couple of more intriguing matches as Denis Shapovalov goes up against Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and then Jelena Ostapenko plays Ying Ying Duan.
The night session on this court looks good. Alize Cornet faces Julia Georges to open things up and then Alexandr Dolgopolov faces the local man Matthew Ebden to round off the day on the court.
Hisense Arena
Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova plays Kateryna Bondarenko to get things going in the Hisense Arena with Belinda Bencic taking on Luksika Kumkhum after they are finished. Two men’s matches end things on this court with Joao Sousa faces Marin Cilic in the day session. Nick Kyrgios is saved for the night session. He plays Viktor Troicki.
Court 2
There is a full set of singles matches on Court 2. Gilles Muller is up first when he plays the Tunisian player Malek Jaziri. Daria Kasatkina is in action after those two. She plays Magda Linette with Kiki Mertens playing Nicole Gibbs afterwards. The final match of the day should be a cracker as Andrey Rublev goes up against Marcos Baghdatis.
Best of the Rest
There are some decent names dotted around the grounds on Wednesday with Pablo Carreno Busta out on Court 3 along with the Olympic champion Monica Puig. South American pair of Pablo Cuevas and Diego Schwartzman are also on the outside courts along with British player Kyle Edmund.
[the_ad_group id=”3624″]
Men’s Betting
I’m going with two bets in the men’s draw on Wednesday. The first is on Denis Shapovalov to take care of Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. He beat him fair and square in straight sets in the US Open last year and while I think it might take longer to get the better of the Frenchman here, I do expect the exciting young talent to rise to the occasion once again. Credit must go to Tsonga for looking good in the first round but this is a significant step up on that and one I fancy he will be edged out in.
Kyle Edmund had a wonderful win in the first round when he took care of Kevin Anderson over five sets in a marathon battle and while the win was good you wonder how much it will have taken out of him. Denis Istomin was a more convincing winner in the first round and while you can never rely on him for consistency he should be carrying big memories of his memorable win over Novak Djokovic here last year. That inspiration could see him past a potential jaded Edmund.
Women’s Betting
Just the one bet for me in the women’s draw where I expect Belinda Bencic to come through relatively unscathed when she faces Luksika Kumkhum of Thailand. Bencic is playing very well as we saw against Venus Williams in the previous round and as long as she doesn’t suffer a comedown from that I expect the Swiss star to breeze through.
Tips
Back D.Shapovalov to beat J-W.Tsonga for a 4/10 stake at 2.40 with 888sport
Back him here:
Back D.Istomin to beat K.Edmund for a 3/10 stake at 3.00 with Coral
Back him here:
Back B.Bencic (-4.5 games) to beat L.Kumkhum for a 4/10 stake at 1.80 with Boylesports
Back her here:
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2018
