The second Monday of the Australian Open sees the fourth round of both the singles draws played to a conclusion which means that at the end of the action we will know the identity of the eight players left to battle it out for the men’s title and the women’s one.
Sunday saw a couple of epic encounters on Rod Laver Arena with Rafael Nadal and Grigor Dimitrov both making it through them while Caroline Wozniacki and Elina Svitolina breezed through their matches too. Monday sees the likes of Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic and Simona Halep looking to join them.
Rod Laver Arena
The action gets underway with a very tasty looking match up between US Open finalist Madison Keys and Singapore semi-finalist Caroline Garcia with Su-Wei Hsieh taking on the former champion Angelique Kerber after that. Roger Federer rounds off the day session when he takes on one of the surprise packages of the event in Marton Fucsovics.
It is the men that get the night session underway once again when Novak Djokovic goes up against the Next Gen star Hyeon Chung before the Czech battle of Barbora Strycova and Karolina Pliskova finishes off the last truly busy day on Laver.
Margaret Court Arena
Mixed in with a couple of doubles matches are a couple of singles matches on Margaret Court Arena. The first of those sees Fabio Fognini taking on Tomas Berdych in what should be an entertaining match while later in the day world number one Simona Halep goes up against Naomi Osaka for a quarter final spot.
Hisense Arena
After three doubles matches to open up the play there is one singles match on the Hisense Arena on Monday. It comes from the men’s draw as Dominic Thiem looks to set up a potential quarter final with Novak Djokovic when he takes on the giant killer Tennys Sandgren.
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Betting
There is only one bet I like in the entire day on Monday and it comes in the women’s draw where the number one seed Simona Halep just has to be taken on. She went nearly four hours in the previous round and those kind of epics have to have a knock on effect even for someone as fit and energetic as the Romanian.
If that was not bad enough, Halep faces Naomi Osaka who she has gone three sets with in both their previous battles and who is very much on the upgrade. Osaka is yet to drop a set in this tournament so she should be as fresh as a daisy. Braver punters may well back Osaka to win the match but this hasn’t been my best tournament to date so I’m going to play the safer route of taking her with a solid 3.5 game head start.
Tips
Back N.Osaka (+3.5 games) to beat S.Halep for a 4/10 stake at 1.91 with Betfred
Back her here:
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